Hidden Ache
by drinktea
Summary: Reno is bored of it all: the same sights, the same sounds, the same smells. What he needs is a challenge. Where will he find one? Where he least expects it. Postgame RenoTifa.
1. Through the Grey

_Disclaimer: Who wants to sing the 'FFVII Belongs to Squenix and Not Me' Song with me? Noone? Thought so._

Sakura-Angel: Now, this could very possibly stay a one-shot, but it has equal chances of becoming a multi-chapter, depending on how my brain decides to function. I had some ideas of where I could go with this, but I'm not exactly sure if I should go on, so if you read this, tell me your preference!

**

Hidden Ache

**

Overfamiliarity had killed something in him.

The lethal redhead sat hunched over his freshly opened bottle of vodka, loving - and then cursing - the familiar burning sensation in his throat. He sat on the smooth, slanted slab of stone that held up the glass of the window of the liquor store.

He was bored of it all. Even after Meteor, there was the same stench of waste flowing down the streets, the same grey overcast sky dotted with birds flying, trying to get away. The same palette of greys and browns in everything he saw, the same scandalized looks tossed his way when he dared to wear his navy blazer and tie. He was even getting sick of the weight of his gun in the holster on his hip and the slap of nightstick against his thigh when he walked. He was getting bored of the expectant long walks down dark, smoke-filled alleys to supposedly secret hideouts.

He needed something else. Something that was new and-

A voluptuous brunette pulled open the door to the liquor store and he looked up momentarily at her. The curve of her jaw and the swing of her earrings triggered something in his memory.

A challenge.

He left the bottle of vodka outside on the step and pulled open the door to the shop the second time that day and followed her in, interested. He caught another glimpse of her face. His hunch was confirmed.

Now, _this _was the kind of familiarity he needed.

It was none other than Tifa Lockheart.

He followed her down an aisle lined with fairly expensive liquor. She picked up a bottle of amber poison - scotch - and turned it in her hands so she could see the label, blinking her red-brown eyes.

This was gonna be fun. "Well, if it isn't Tifa Lockheart!" Reno exclaimed, feigning surprise. He slapped his hand down on her shoulder at the same time he let out his proclamation, taking her by total surprise. Which was his intention.

She gave a surprised gasp and was facing him in a second, bottle raised and positioned at his head already.

"H-hey, cool it," Reno's hand lifted from her shoulder instantly to signal that he didn't need to be knocked out right now and that he meant her no harm. It was just him, good ol' bad ol' Reno. "Calm down Lockheart, it's just me."

Every muscle in her body relaxed and she dropped her arms, but not the bottle, luckily. Her eyes instantly hardened once she saw the ex-Turk, seeing and talking to him meant instant irritation, she knew it. "Can't you just say hi like normal people?"

"I ain't normal people, babe."

"No, I suppose you're not. And don't call me that."

"What, 'babe'?" He grinned at her little kiddishly.

"That." She walked past him and out of the aisle to the counter.

"Tifa! How're you today? Since you've been such a good customer, I'll give it to ya."

"Oh no, I couldn't let you do that, here, let me--"

Reno came up beside her perkily and placed his hand on her shoulder again, despite what had happened last time. Luckily for him, she was too focused on the cashier.

"You aren't getting out of this, Teef, I'm giving it to ya and that's that," the nonchalant answer came.

"I feel guilty taking it from you, please just le-- Would you stop that?" She glared up at Reno, finally acknowledging him and the annoying way he tapped his fingers on her shoulder.

Her glaring solicited a smile from Reno and his smile grew even more when...

"He your boyfriend?" the gum chewing cashier pointed a finger at the extremely amused redhead.

"No!" Tifa said too quickly as she jolted her shoulder out from under Reno's hand. "I'm sorry about this," she said to the teenage cashier before pushing the door open and walking out brusquely, unintentionally knocking over Reno's vodka bottle at the same time.

Reno didn't even bat an eyelid over his lost liquor as caught up in this reunion, of sorts, as he was. "For future reference," he leaned over the counter at the befuddled employee, "I am," and he winked at the cashier before leaving himself, not wanting to give up the goose chase for all it was worth.

He was relieved to find that she was still on the same block as he was once he came out of the store. "Hey Tifa!" he thrust his hand in the air and weaved his way through the greys and browns to her, the only white.

"What," she snapped as he jogged up beside her.

"Aw, why do you have to look like that?" he spun on his heel to look her in the eye and started walking backwards. He made sure he had her attention, then did an intentional bad imitation of her frown.

She smiled thinly, closing her eyes and shaking her head. It seemed his light teasing had worked. "The way you acted was like... nothing happened."

He sobered up instantly and went back to walking at her side, accidentally bumping someone during his transition. "Sorry."

"To who?" her eyes were trained on the heels of the person in front of her.

"To the both of you," he looked at her looking at the sidewalk. "To that random lady and to you. But to you more, y'know, 'cause I don't really give a flying about her," he grinned in that little kiddish way again.

"Reno!" her tone was amused, yet she remprimanded him. "That was mean."

He shrugged. "It's true."

The hustle and bustle of cars on the street and people walking at hurried paces and the sound of children's play filled in the silence of their conversation, only to be broken again.

"I don't forgive you, you know."

Reno glanced at her briefly, it seemed his eyes couldn't get enough of her. "I know," and he shifted his hands in his pockets.

The conversation segued into another silence. Tifa kept staring at the sidewalk ahead of her and Reno kept staring at the grey sky.

"So," he revived the conversation again. "If 'babe' doesn't work, what does?" He tilted his head up even more and birds quickly flitted across his field of vision. His expression said he was pretending to think and trying not to crash into anyone at the same time. "Sugar? Snookums? Loooooove bucket?"

She allowed herself a small grin at his charming lack of maturity and shook her head, amused. "Tifa will do, Reno, Tifa will do."


	2. As It Began

_Disclaimer: FFVII is not mine. I bet you love reading these, yeah?_

Sakura-Angel: Eep. I might not have done too well with this one... sort of boring in my opinion. Just wanted them to get a feel for each other, so the plot will pick up soon. Read on.

**

Hidden Ache

**

"You _own _this place?"

Tifa chuckled lightly at his bewilderment and nodded her head. She inserted a key smoothly into the lock bolting the glass door shut and seemingly fumbled with the extra lock, but what seemed like bumbling frustration turned out to be an impressive sleight of hand, and the door was open.

He wondered shortly how she'd done it, and how useful she'd have been as a Turk, then decided it didn't matter as much as actually going inside.

It was actually sort of a miracle in itself that she hadn't just run away from him when he'd chased after her. He knew she could run pretty damn fast. Maybe not as fast as him, but...

Her head popped out from inside the building and the quizzical look on her face made him smile, something he wasn't used to doing from such a simple action. It was a little disconcerting.

"Aren't you coming in? You asked to see my 'fine establishment', didn't you?" She asked, reffering to their banter on the walk to said fine establishment.

"Yeah yeah yeah," and he waved her off lightly as he would someone he was familiar with, and made his way into 'Lockheart, opening soon', or so the sign outside told him. His shoes made hollow echoes on the floor as he stepped in. He was a little cautious, still not able to shake those years of Turk training made instinct.

The ceiling was a fairly good height and the floors were a smooth wood. The walls seemed to be in the process of being painted a light sort of yellow, paint splotches on the floor, along with dusty footprints. A long counter and shelf combo took up the back wall and stools still covered in plastic were lined along the counter. Windows at the back with the blinds open let in much needed sunlight.

Reno had reached the centre of the large room and looked around with a passing interest in the paint. The cogs and wheels in his head started turning. _'Now what could ensue from that?' _But decided to make his way over to the counter where the martial artist was depositing her coat.

"So when's this 'opening soon'?" He came up casually behind her.

"Oh, a little less than three weeks," she looked around the place and then at her unexpected guest. Who would've known she'd be running into an ex-Turk today? Not her, that's for sure.

"It's pretty nice for a bar," the redhead noted outloud.

"I don't want to run a sleazy bar in a bad part of town, Reno," she looked a little amused and cross at him at the same time. "Can't imagine why." And she strode towards a can of paint.

"You know," he started after her, an edge in his voice, "I don't remember you being this cutting before."

She shrugged in a way that told him that she was trying to hide something from him and bent down to get a roller from an empty tray. "People change."

"Ah... huh," he looked at her, a little unbelieving. There was probably something hidden in that statement because she was a woman, and women were sneaky like that, but he decided to go for the lighter conversation path. He then walked up next to her to stare at the half-painted wall. "Not terribly interesting, huh?" He placed his elbow on her shoulder and started leaning against her, head cocked to the side, fingers stroking his chin in a silly sort of thoughtful way. "I bet..."

"No."

He laughed, and his voice seemed even louder than before because he was right next to her. Strike that, _leaning _into her. What _was _he doing anyway? He was making her uneasy...

"You mistrust me so much, my love bucket," he looked right at her, green eyes gleaming.

"It's Tifa. And I wonder why?"

"That cut me deep, Teefee, cut me deep."

Where was he getting all these stupid nicknames?

"Seriously now Reno," she dropped the roller on the floor and whirled around, forcibly taking out her shoulder from under him. He stumbled a bit, but ever the composed guy that he was, he regained his balance quickly. He shot her a dirty look, but she didn't seem fazed at all.

"Why did you even bother talking to me? You used to want to _kill _me."

"Business. It's all in the past, nothing personal. And..." He stood defiantly in front of her, hands on his hips, head tilted, chin up, smirking with half-lidded eyes. "I guess," he bent forward at the waist and meet her at eye-level, "You'll have to find out for yourself, wontcha?" And he poked her nose and spun on his heel, walking crookedly towards the cans of paint along an emptier wall.

She stared dumbly after his swaying ponytail and his scuffed shoes and wondered exactly what kind of a person he was. He was an absolutely ruthless assassin who wouldn't hesitate to take someone's life with a precise stab of his weapon, eyes glinting with an egotistical superiority, mouth contorted into a sadistic smile. He was a clumsy, lanky man with the spirit of a child, the kind who would hold his arms out and walk tilted, crookedly, pretending at tightrope walker. He was certainly a paradox, this Reno... Somethingorother. Which brought up something rather vital - his last name.

"Hey Reno," Tifa raised her voice so it would carry across the room properly. She'd lost her earlier snappishness, as curiousity and bewilderment (that nose-poking thing she had definitely not expected) had taken over.

_'Wait a second.' _She thought, coming to her senses. She didn't _need _to know his last name. She was treating him like he was someone who she wanted to get to know, and she definitely didn't need to know a Turk. Ex-Turk. So why...

He half-turned his torso, a paintbrush in his hands. His eyebrows were raised, an easygoing smile on his face. "Yes, love?"

And before she knew it, she was ready to talk again, despite her latest revelation. "This is a little embarassing..."

He turned around fully, one hand falling to his side and the other buried in his hair, his mouth twisted into a grimace. "Oh, I know what this is."

"Do you?" She was thoroughly confused. By herself and by him.

He grinned inwardly. He'd already gotten to her, it was so obvious. The challenge might've been easier than he anticipated. Then again, there was her earlier comment... about people changing. There was doubt it had to do with that Cloud guy. He'd seen it in a second, all those months ago when they'd been in battle. Ah well, he needed something to spice things up anyway.

"You want to admit your initial attraction to me upon our first meeting, but you're too embarassed to say it outright," he shook his head and sighed lightly. "It's okay Teef, I get this all the time," he waved lazily, seemingly exasperated, his wrist limp.

"What," she raised an amused eyebrow, letting her uncertain thoughts about her motives behind asking him something so simple dissipate, "Would make you think that?"

"Oh, that's not what it is?" He looked surprised, aquamarine eyes bright. "What a relief, it's so exhausting having people confess their undying devotion towards me on a semi-regular basis. Gets old, really," he smiled again and closed his eyes, starting up his limp-wristed waving again. He opened his eyes and a surprisingly devious look on his face appeared. "But you'd know how that feels, wouldn't you?"

She tried to not blush at his flattery. Maybe letting herself get sidetracked from the last name thing _was _a little more dangerous than pondering her motives. "Actually, I was wondering what your last name was..." she nodded to assure herself of what she was doing. She felt herself blush from what she convinced herself was entirely embarassment and not the look he was tossing her way. "I was never... properly introduced?"

"Ah, it's--" he paused, an idea popping into his head. "You have any paper?"

Tifa, recovering from her earlier confusion, could only make a half-heartedly confused face and ask, "What for?"

"You'll see," he grinned. He made his way behind the bar, the tails of his suit arcing through the air gracefully and settling. He poked around the shelves for a pad of paper. She was bound to have some paper somewhere.

He sneezed, dust flying into his face and settling over the shoulders of his suit. How could such a new place have so much dust?

"Bless you," came the automatic reply. She walked over after him, interested. "Why can't you just tell me your last name?"

He sniffled and replied, "That," he rumaged a little more and found an uncapped pen, along with a small pad of paper. He popped back out over the counter and smiled triumphantly, "Would be too easy."

She smiled a little at the redhead's goofy grin. Being around him was a little infectious.

He turned around to write something, using the cabinets along the wall as support instead of just writing on the counter. The action was a little strange, and she felt like she wasn't being let in on something.

"What are you doing?" she spoke up from behind him.

"You'll find out," he said mysteriously, and she couldn't help but hear some sing-song taunt in the words.

After a few more seconds of tapping and scratching from the pen being moved across coarse paper... "Here you are," he extended the piece of paper towards her, chucking the pen and pad of paper onto the shelf in front of his knees.

He'd almost forgotten he needed to leave soon. Things had to go according to plan, after all, and step one was to phase himself in little by little.

She took it from him slowly, as if touching it meant she'd be poisoned, and turned it over in her hands so she could read it. No doubt it'd say something whimsically dumb like 'Three guesses', but she had to give him a chance. After all, he'd given her a chance earlier that day by risking a concussion to talk to the former enemy.

"Well I must be going, Tifa m'dear," he said abruptly, and he was at the door in a second.

She looked up quickly, surprised that she hadn't noticed.

"See ya," and he saluted with his back to her, not giving her a chance to say good-bye, door closing shut behind him.

The cold air stung his skin as he stepped out onto the sidewalk, destination unknown. The wind whistled in his ears and threw back the collar of his thin shirt, but he didn't mind. His mind was still back in that little soon-to-be bar, and nothing could dim the excitement of the start of a new challenge.


	3. All in a Day's Work

_Disclaimer: Here's some apparently grade eleven level mathematical reasoning for you.  
Combine these two statements:  
Susanne is not Square-Enix. FFVII belongs to Square-Enix. Therefore...  
Uh. Yeah. Sorry, just sort of disappointed at Pure Math 20._

Sakura-Angel: Ehh... Ignore that snarky disclaimer please. Semester two is coming up, and I really don't want to start Bio and Chem. And I have to finish painting A Very Important Door for my school soon. Too much for a silly grade ten student to handle, dontcha know.  
Anyways, enough of my useless rambling that is completely unrelated to the story. We need some useless rambling that IS! Okay. Not exactly what I had in mind for this chapter, admittedly, I wanted a little more Reno/Tifa interaction, but I'm sure the stuff I've got planned for later will make up for it. I wanted to focus on Reno a bit more this chapter, and doing that would undoubtedly include his, er, job. So, that said, happy(?) reading, and ** happy **(belated)** birthday 'Soul!**

**

Hidden Ache

**

It was after a long day of painting and going back to the liquor store to get her scotch - which she ended up not paying for at the insistance of the cashier again, leaving her feeling guilty - that she finally had a chance to relax. 

She traced a ring of water on the counter with a ragged nail and let her mind wander. She couldn't help it when it drifted off to a certain blonde... it'd been five days since she'd last spoke to him. 

Yes, she remembered. She remembered that voice he used over the phone, a subdued excitement tinged with guilt. The excitement was going around and seeing everything all over again, getting to revel in things that he'd just rushed past before. The guilt was in leaving her behind. She knew. 

He left sometimes for other towns and little jobs. He'd speak quickly and she could just tell his eyes lit up when he told her how well reconstuction was going in whatever town he was in at the moment, or how beautiful the sky could be in other cities. And he'd slow down, picking his words slowly and nimbly when he'd ask her how she was, or how the bar was coming along. 

And she'd smile weakly and say she was good or that it was coming along great, and then want to slap herself once she placed the reciever back on its hook for not saying something more. It was their routine. They'd fallen into it unwittingly and unintentionally, but they didn't bother to break it. 

She sighed, sort of melancholy now, and straightened, shifting her weight off her elbows and onto her feet. She began to walk into the little room in the back of the bar when-- 

The door opened swiftly and silently. "Hey babe," a confident drawl was accompanied by equally confident, echoing steps towards the counter. 

"Reno," she despondently replied. 

He dragged out a stool, one perfect, dent-free metal leg hitting the floor over and over, and Tifa felt suddenly vulnerable to all the noise around her. The shuffling of the cars outside, the chatter of women getting their hair styled next door coming through the thin walls. The creak the stool made when the assassin sat on it was painful, it made her shut her eyes. She could hear the air being drawn past the redhead's lips as he prepared to speak, and the blood pulsing in her ears - an organic red flashing and reflecting on her closed eyelids everytime her heart beat. A chill worked its way through her torso, itching all the way up to her neck. She shivered. 

"I'm not _ that _ ghastly, I'm hoping," Reno said in a, strangely enough, good-natured way. 

"It's not..." she paused and grasped the edge of the counter seperating them, letting another shiver work itself through her, "You." She knew that the bags beneath her eyes were more pronounced now, dark against her paling skin. 

"Then what's wrong?" His brow furrowed a little at this strange, unseen side of her, his breezy mood dissipating. He was getting up to go to her, and she sensed it. 

"No," she rasped, not knowing why she was suddenly so breathless. "I'm..." her vocal chords failed her, the 'fine' perched on the tip of her tongue but not willing to leave her dry mouth. 

"About to fall over," and he appeared at her side suddenly, staying true to his streak of arrivals and departures. He could be everywhere, even if he was needed or not. And he could disappear just as easily. 

That thought came to her through all the cold and the unwelcome, amplified sound, and her reaction was to grasp his shirtsleeve tighter. She didn't know why she did it. She hadn't even noticed she'd taken ahold of it before, but that didn't matter now. She had to lie down... 

Reno sensed this as well it seemed, and spied the door to the backroom in a second. He walked through the doorway with her leaning sickly against him. He helped her onto the unfurnished bed, not talking all the while, no signature smirk despite where they were and how dark it was in the room. 

"Hey Reno..." she started weakly and bewildered, "Thanks. For..." 

"It's okay," he nodded, cutting her off with a gentleness she didn't know he posessed. He really continued to surprise her. "You're tired. You're sick. Just rest," and he looked at her with just the right amount of blended concern and matter-of-factness. She wanted to believe that his blue-green eyes really _ were _ softer than usual when he'd told her that, but she let out a fatigued sigh and gratefully let her eyelids droop instead. 

-------- 

After lying her in her bed, he left quietly, locking the main lock, but not bothering with the one she had so skillfully dealt with a few days ago. 

He hadn't intended to go in actually, but he was passing by and figured that he might as well drop in on his little love bucket. He didn't want to admit it to himself in the midst of all these strangers down on their luck, but something drew him to her. Maybe it was just that rush at the start of a challenge. Yeah, that was definitely it. 

Anyways, he swept in, hoping to maybe get a little more familiar with her. He knew she didn't exactly love him. Yet. 

So imagine his surprise when he found her looking like she'd just been through hell and back. He'd been in her 'fine establishment' for a little over ten seconds, and she was hunched over and pale. 

So he'd helped her into her little backroom with the faint hope that there'd be some sort of place for her to rest. Otherwise, he'd have to help her back to her house, and that would just completely mess up his plans. He didn't want to get _ quite _ that close to her. Not yet. 

Luckily, there was a bed, and he helped her lay down in it. Only after helping her had he realized that he could've done a million suggestive things. Huh. He wondered briefly why he hadn't, because he was... well, him after all, but decided it wasn't worth dwelling on. He had something to do. 

He walked smoothly through an open door and bounded up the cheaply-carpeted staircase into a decently-sized restaurant. He found a clearly shook-up waiter who was trying to conceal his being shaken up. He was not succeeding. 

"Hello," Reno greeted him amusedly with a tap on his shoulder. 

The waiter turned around, frightened, and could only stammer, "Y-yes? Sir?" 

He eyed him meaningfully. "Wouldn't you say the weather today is grey?" 

The poor boy's eyes widened as he eventually said, "O-oh, yes. It seems that way Sir, but it's always been like this. G-grey, I mean." 

He continued looking him straight in the eye. "Then you'd best get me a table away from the grey." He stepped politely out of the way for a woman with too much makeup on, and cracked his knuckles casually. His fourth finger, then his middle. 

The boy watched, gulping. "Yes, of course," and spastically led him to a table just far enough away from the window so that none of the light from outside touched it. There sat an imposing, square-shouldered man in a grey overcoat. He wore a hat. His legs were crossed. 

Reno sat down across from him with a false familiarity he had perfected from going to meetings exactly like this one. He started lightly, "What'd you do to the kid?" 

The man smirked, and Reno knew right away that he did this very often. "Told him to memorize a little script, is all." 

"Hah," he smiled a little cruelly. That waiter would be quitting today. He took out a little flask he had hidden in his coat and unscrewed the top like he'd done it a million times - which he had - and took a little gulp. Didn't want to get trashed before a job, after all. "So, should we continue?" 

"There's a little lady who works downtown. Knows a bit too much and has a mouth that's a bit too big," he uncrossed his legs and leaned forward slightly. "Bleached hair, chunky, loud laugh. Know her?" 

"Works in the new part of downtown." 

"Sounds like you do." 

"Operahouse, main floor." 

"You got her," he stood up and adjusted the fit of his overcoat. "Wish my life was as simple as this meeting. There's a show in ten minutes. I'm assuming you're good enough to not need a ticket to get in." 

Reno shrugged with a hint of cockiness. 

"Good," and he left, tipping his hat at the twitchy waiter on his way out. 

He hated people like that. Hated dealing with them, hated seeing and talking to them. Because they hid smugly behind their big titles and their money. He hated it more that he couldn't do anything about it, because he needed them - their money more specifically - to keep off the street. 

He looked out the window, letting the slightest bit of despair show in his mako-esque eyes. You'd think that once everyone on the planet almost died, they'd be a little more appreciative of everything, but that clearly wasn't that case. There was still mistrust and greed. Sure, the city had changed a lot, but the days of Shinra still hung over it like a grey corpse. He supposed Pandora's box was still open. 

When he stood up he felt the pull of his gun towards the ground. He placed his flask back into its usual hiding place and walked out the way he came, the waiter trying to politely ignore him. 

The barely muted fright the waiter felt towards the both of them stayed with him for a few blocks. He couldn't help but remember his Turk days, when everyone looked at him that way, with a grudging respect, obvious hate and definite fear. He grinned to himself. Those were the days. 

He turned sharply onto a short path lined with little lanterns and ascended the steps with his hands in his pockets, taking them two at a time. He kept the look on his face indifferent, even though he was shifting from civilian to assassin. He pushed the revolving door with ease, and remembered that he had three bullets left in his gun. He stepped onto the plush carpet and kept his stride normal, and saw with a critical eye his target. He exchanged a pleasantry with an elderly lady and thought immediately after that he was glad he didn't bring his mag-rod with him this morning. 

After everyone had validated their tickets, Reno hung out in the lobby and asked the lady (who did indeed have a loud laugh and bleached hair) if he could smoke. She said it would be best if he didn't. He did anyway. 

About fifteen minutes into the performance, just the time when everyone would either be falling asleep or be completely absorbed, Reno put out his cigarette in the soil of a plant and cleared his throat. He looked at her face and deliberately avoided looking at her nametag. He didn't need to know her name. 

She hurriedly hung up on whoever she had gossiped with since everyone had been ushered in and cleared her throat as well. "Yes?" 

"Do you have a broom I could borrow?" Reno asked, conjuring an excuse out of thin air. 

"Oh I'm sorry for keeping you waiting for so long!" She looked genuinely apologetic. "You could've interrupted me," she sounded ashamed, and got up quickly from behind the desk. 

_'Don't be sorry.'_ He thought, but there was no trace of early regret in his mind or on his face. "It's alright," he said, decpetively friendly despite what he was about to do, and he followed her towards a closet on the opposite wall from the auditorium. 

She dug around the cleaning closet with her back to the assassin and her inquisitive, slightly muted voice floated out to him, "What did you need that for?" 

"Oh, nothing," he said. And before she could ask why he needed it then, he took out his gun fluidly and lined up his shot. 

With murderous precision he fired two bullets. And the show went on, undisturbed. 

He left the operahouse with steps as sure as the ones that he took towards her unsuspecting back. He could feel the echos from the shots dissolving into the nighttime air, and he walked on, undisturbed. 


	4. Tolerable Acquaintances

_Disclaimer: I own nothing!_

Sakura-Angel: Well after half a year of might as well having been dead, this story gets a new chapter! Not that anyone would remember, seeing as I'm a hussy and didn't write/read anything Reno x Tifa until now and have probably lost my touch. Ah well, let's give it a whirl, shall we?

**

Hidden Ache

**

Well, now that he'd earned his worth, Reno felt the need to treat himself to something. With what, he wasn't exactly sure. He needed food, but he wanted something else. What this something else was was different than the usual something else, hence his confusion.

Reno was the kind of guy who knew himself. He knew his patterns, his faults (as cocky as he could get, he knew they existed), his strengths, his intentions. There was simply no room for a second thought or false step when you were a Turk, and Reno couldn't tolerate either. This creeped into other parts of his life, into who he _was_, basically...

Which was why he frustrated himself when he couldn't figure out why the hell he wanted to see her.

--------

Tifa woke up with a dry mouth and sore eyes. She smelled wood. She felt the stiffness of the sheets against her stomach. And then she shot up, not believing herself. This wasn't her bed! What had she done? Were her clothes still on? Pleasepleaseplease, tell her she wasn't _that_ stupid.

Oh. Her bar. The bed in her bar. Right.

Heartbeat regulating itself, Tifa tested her legs by pacing around the small room.

How did she end up here? She couldn't remember a thing. ... And then the memory of smoke and hair so bright it made her eyes throb ripped itself from her memory. She sat stupidly on the bed, feeling the cold sweat soaked into the pillow from earlier.

Reno. He'd come, laid her on the bed, and left.

Her eyes shifted, not so that she take in the room, but merely out of the instinct of something strange happening. That seemed very un-Reno-like. Then again, there was the possibility of him being a nice guy underneath.

Hah. Yeah, right.

But as soon as she denied it, another memory of his gentle hold flew at her from her subconcious.

Reluctant to admit it to herself, Tifa decided she needed to do something to take her mind off him. Maybe she could walk out of the room. Or out of the bar. Or out of Midgar...

Three sharp raps sounded from the other side of the door. "Tifa? You there?"

How did he _do_ that? Geez.

"C-come in," her voice came out sounding small and pathetic. She still had the dry throat syndrome that came from waking up after you'd slept for awhile. At least that what she wanted to believe the shake in her voice came from, as opposed to nervousness.

The door opened slowly, the redhead coming into view... with his hand over his eyes. Reno could very well sense that Tifa was standing a few metres away from him, but decided to say something to break the ice further. "Now Teef, I don't know about girls, but I know guys sometimes sleep naked, and I wanted to see if you're okay, but if you're topless or something that would be weird, and even if you're sleeping and can't hear me saying this at all it feels better to say this just to establish the fact that I'm here."

He hadn't heard her say 'come in'? Well... all the better. She cleared her throat. "I'm awake. And I'm not naked."

His hand uncovered his eyes and he grinned instantly. "Hey! Are you better?" And he moved to feel her forehead.

"Ye--"

His fingers were over her lips now, shushing her. "Uh-bup-bup-bup-bup, don't you lie to me." His fingers were now prying open her mouth so he could take a look at her tongue. "You're definitely still sick."

She jerked her head away, annoyed at the easy manner he used around her. "What are you doing? And what do you know? You're not a doctor."

He clucked his tongue at her, disappointed. "I don't need to be a doctor to tell that you're sick, Teefee, m'dear," and he spun around on his heel, making strides towards the room outside.

Her stare followed him out the door. He could hear her voice carried through the air, "I'm not sick!" And she appeared in the doorway a moment later.

"Oh, but it's easy to see," he leaned against the counter, eyebrow raised. "You're definitely, definitely sick," and he walked jauntily towards her, bending at the waist to look her in the eye. "You're lovesick."

"Lovesick?"

He nodded. "You're as sick as Don Corneo in nothing but red pumps and a smile."

"That _is_ sick!" She giggled, but sobered herself up again. "What would make you say that?" She had the suspicion he knew about her feelings for Cloud, even though they'd never been on terms to exchange their love interests with each other.

"The Don or the lovesick?"

Tifa was about to say the latter, but considered. "Both."

Reno grinned. "I wanted to gross you out. Aaaaand it's obvious that you're in love with me." He grinned even wider.

The martial artist (he was suddenly very aware of that fact) looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Reno, I am not in love with you," she deadpanned.

"Ohoho, you can keep denying it, but you know you are," he sang, and she was afraid that he'd suddenly start skipping and dancing with the way he was practically crooning it. Then again, this _was_ Reno.

He was ready to jump gracefully out of the way if she suddenly decided to karate chop him or something, but instead she ground out, "I am not."

He grinned Chesire Cat-style and spun away from her on his heel. "You love me. You know it."

"Yeah, you're worming your way into my heart with this," she mumbled, choosing to dive to deeper waters rather than get riled up. She walked towards a paint tray. "You mind helping out? If not, then you should leave."

He ceased his crowing and looked at her comically. "This late? My, my, you are a workaholic, aren't you?"

She proceeded to pour the light-yellow-or-cream (he'd never been good with colour names) paint into the tray, and picked up a roller. "I'm not. In fact, I've pretty much screwed myself over by setting the opening date for so soon," she dipped the roller into the paint. "And people aren't going to like waiting if I push it back."

The redhead stood behind her and watched as her body stretched and shrunk over and over again to apply the paint to the walls. What a sight. He cleared his throat. "So screw them."

"What?" She didn't stop painting.

"Forget them. If you can't do a good job on this in the amount of time you've been given, extend it. It's not like people are going to enjoy a half-finished bar anyway, right?" he peeled off his blazer, setting it gently enough on the floor so his gun wouldn't make a thump, since he'd placed it there after his job.

"And they'd be happy with waiting? Especially when it says that I'll be opening in two and a half weeks?"

He rolled up his sleeves and picked up a roller near his feet. "Teef, it's _your_ place. If they can't see that, then to hell with them."

She was about to reply, but he cut her off. Probably on purpose too.

"AND if they like it that much, they'll wait for it, right?" He walked over and dipped his roller in paint, looked over at her and smiled, a real smile too, not just a smirk or a mocking smile. "You know I'm right."

She stared at him for awhile, unblinking eyes betraying not a hint of emotion.

"I'm right," and he looked away, rolling paint onto the wall.

She stared at him some more. Her other arm dropped to her side. "Why do you care?"

"Hn?" His lazy gaze went to the roller in her hand, resting by her thigh. He looked at her fingernails. "Just saying. If it's good enough," he was now looking her in the eye, "Wouldn't you wait for it?"

Her shoulders sagged a little more. Her lips parted. She had the look of a girl who'd just realized something that was supposed to be light was now heavy, serious. She turned away, lifting her arm to apply more paint, but not really wanting to. "I don't know."

"I think you would," he said softly, quashing the chance of an awkward silence rising between them. "I think you're already waiting."

She swallowed, bending over and rolling her tool in the paint. He knew. He _knew_.

"It's the blonde, right? Cloud. You're head over feet for him." What was going on? He was speaking without thinking about he said. He never did that. Ever. "He's gone, isn't he? Ditched you for that brat, right? Or maybe he swings that way and he ran off with the cape guy." He wasn't planning on bringing something like this up so soon, things this sensitive were for later. Or never. But with Tifa, it was like he couldn't help himself.

She felt her resolve weakening, her throat tightening. "I'm... not."

He scoffed. "Of course you're not, Tifa." Was he a glutton for confrontation?

It was quiet for a very long time. There was no painting, no sound of breaths being taken in... they were both locked in their own positions, and there was no sign of either breaking their pose. They'd both sat through countless stakeouts and awkward silences, they were ready for more. And then...

"So what if I am?"

He drew a breath sharply in and refocused his eyes on her.

"It's not like I'm... just sitting and not making anything of my life," her voice was soft. "I know he'll come back."

"Right," his hand moved his roller into the paint. "Just waiting for the inevitable."

She swallowed again, watching his hand move back and forth. "Right."

--------

So the plan was a bit fried. He hadn't planned on awkward confrontational tension until a week from never, along with a breakfast of tea and scones and falling for her, but...

It was okay. He'd just move it all up, speed up the process. This change in plans was fine because Reno was Reno and he could adapt to anything. He made it a point to not adapt to anything too well though, because that led to reliance and that was a big no. If that happened, he'd lose his edge, the thing that set him apart from everyone else. And if there was one thing he was holding onto in this world, it was his spunk.

And yet...

"Fair maiden! I come bearing gifts!" The little soon-to-be-bar saved him from the blustery day.

She tossed a glance his way to affirm that it was indeed him, and told him, a little more warmly than usual, to leave it on the counter. He did so.

He sauntered over to her. "You know you have paint on your nose, right?" the redhead poked said appendage fondly, then checked his finger for paint.

She moved her head away, frowning slightly. "I know."

He bent over to pick up a roller and dunked it in the paint, shirttails sticking half-in and half-out of his pants. "Why the frown?"

Tifa reached out dazedly and pulled his shirttails out with as little affection as possible and considered giving them a little pat, but she decided she wasn't that friendly. "Why do you always do... that... thing?"

He looked at her with his head tilted, questioning look not getting through to her. "What thing?"

She blinked, coming to life again. She made useless gestures with her hands. "You know, the whole um, unnecessary... touching thing." Her cheeks heated up a little. When she put it that way she sounded like a fifth grader.

He looked at her more. She really was something. There was a reason he had picked her for this challenge after all. Besides being his former enemy and being pretty hot in her own right (no sense in making a challenge entirely painful), there were times when she could be pretty dorkily cute. And this was one of those times. "If I remember correctly," he smiled at her funny, "You weren't the type who minded it."

She was crouching, fiddling with the handle on the paint bucket. "Yes... well..."

He blew air out his nose amusedly, happy he could embarass her, and returned to painting the wall.

He could hear her clunking around, as difficult as it was to make very much noise with about three objects, and turned to see her rising from the floor, already facing the direction of the counter.

"Curious, eh?"

"You could say that," she replied, back to him. Her sneakers made more echoes across the floor.

He hummed an old beachy song, stopping to say "You like Wutain I hope."

Her eyes lit up upon seeing takeout from her favourite restaurant. "How did you know!" she exclaimed, opening a box with abandon and sniffing the steam wafting out.

"A hunch," and he shrugged, a small smile on his face. "I take it you're hungry."

"Yes!" she grabbed a little plastic fork and knife and began spearing vegetables, making moves to sit on the floor. "I've never had this before," she chewed thoughtfully. "It's good."

He set down his roller and made his way towards the other box. "It was also mine..." he grabbed his own fork and sat back-to-back with her on the floor. "I was gonna give you the noodles, but I guess you don--"

"Noodles?" she suddenly dipped her fork into his carton and sampled said noodles.

He stared at her, amazed at how fast her mood could change. Maybe she was around that time of the month...?

"These are great!" And his carton was whisked out of his hands before he could blink.

Uh.

He stuck his fork through his belt loop and turned around to protest. "Hey Lockheart, ex-Turks have to eat too."

"Mmmmrph," she thrust the box of vegetables and beef at him.

"Glad you like," he said, and even though his back was now to her, she could practically see his eyebrow-raise.

"Mm-hrm," was all she said, choosing to ignore this and opting to munch happily.

Thank goodness she'd remembered he'd brought in some bags earlier, or she'd have to endure standing there with him looking at her like she was stupid, and then undergoing some sort of tease-fest later. Either that or some strange interrogation like the other day. Such extremes... And then she'd remembered the bags he'd brought, and then she'd found out the distraction was her favourite food! It seemed that he'd embarassed her and saved her at the same time. It seemed like a Reno thing to do.

Not that she'd know what was very Reno and what was very not. She'd only been in contact with him for about a week or so since Meteor. But somehow she couldn't help but feel like every meeting with him was colossal, bridging some gap between enemies, and then slowly turning them into... well, friends was stretching it. Tolerable acquaintances.

"Hey Teef," his voice seemed muffled from behind her.

She swallowed a mouthful of broccoli. "Yeah?"

He talked with a full mouth. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Shoot," she said distractedly.

A pause. "What's your favourite colour?"

She would've made a curious noise, but her mouth was full of noodles. She swallowed painfully. "Red. Or white. Why?"

She'd leaned against the back of his neck during her answer, and her hair was tickling him. "Well I figure I've got to get to know you a little. I'm starting out with the basic stuff."

"Okay then," she felt unsettled. "Why do you feel that need?"

He considered. Why did he anyway? "You ever get that feeling in your gut that something or someone is gonna happen to you?"

She pretended to scoff and continued picking the onions out of her side of vegetables. "I'm trained to get that sort of feeling."

"Yeah whatever," he turned his head to get a look at what he could of her. "But I'm talking about something different. You know, not just a little thing, like a big thing. A thing that's really gonna effect you."

"You think I'm going to do that?"

"Yeah, sure," a laugh hitched in his throat, and she could hear it in his voice.

She just shook her head and finished up her noodles. She'd never expected to hear something like that out of Reno. She thought he was bullshitting her completely, maybe even he thought that she thought that, but she wasn't about to press it further. She decided to do something else. "So what's your favourite colour?"

"Red. Or white."

"You're serious?" She got up, plucked the empty carton from Reno's fingers, and tossed both cartons into the garbage.

He lay on the floor now. "Absolutely."

She was at work again, standing on a small ladder with the tray balanced precariously on top. "Never would've guessed."

"Yeah well," his said loudly, ear against the floor so he could watch her. "I contain multitudes."

"Yeah?" She decided to bite. "Like what?"

He laid his wrist over his eyes. "I actually sort of like jazz."

"Huh," she paused in her painting and turned to look at him, still on the floor. "I thought you wouldn't have had an ear for music."

"Like I said, don't judge me, dearest."

"Whatever. What else?" She asked, feeling the uncharacteristic need for talking. Her talking, his, anyone's.

He thought, grasped for any one thing that was unique. It was so hard. He knew he was different from other people, but he couldn't think. "I don't use a nail clipper. I just bite 'em off."

"Gross!" she exclaimed. "Even your toes?"

"Enough about me. You go."

"What?" she said incredulously, wondering more about if he really did bite his toenails than if she needed to share information with him.

"Turns. You say something, I say something," he lifted his arm from across his eyes. "How 'bout it?"

She was applying an unneeded second layer over a spot. A third layer, a fourth... "I used to hate honey."

"No kidding?" He sat up.

"Nope. I thought it was too sweet and sticky and one of the nastiest things ever."

"You are one weird girl, Lockheart," Reno walked lazily over to the half-painted wall and dunked his roller in the mystery-coloured paint.

"Well I'm not the one who bites their nails when they're past the second grade..."

"I used to draw lot," he cut her off. He _knew_ he shouldn't have told her that.

"You continue to amaze me," she said without actually looking amazed. She switched her roller to her other hand. "I played a pretty mean piano."

"I can see it," he moved further down the wall. "When I was little, I got appendicitis."

"I've been thinking about cutting my hair."

"I don't know what 'scruples' means."

"I can't work a coffee machine to save my life."

"I didn't know what sort of animal your friend RedXIII was."

"Sometimes, I get an irrational fear of the dark."

"I'm allergic to watermelon..."

--------

Reno was walking back to his apartment later that night, hands stuffed in his pockets.

He did the math in his head. The challenge would be conveniently over before Christmas. He was pretty much in the casual friend stage, just needed to ease himself in a bit more. There was no guarantee that she wouldn't throw a curve ball his way though, what with that Cloud guy and all. Hm. It was strange, on paper, Tifa was perfect. It was just like it was with so many other acquaintances-turned-admirers. She'd even be over before any major holidays. But in actuality, it was like she had the reins, and she was converging towards something different. She'd sped them up, slowed them down, raced them onto an entirely different map, and she didn't even know she was doing it.

The weirder thing though? He didn't mind.


	5. Yesterday Arrives

_Disclaimer: Neither Reno, Tifa, Elena or Sir Spike belong to me. Or "Crazy in Love", or whatever that song's called by Beyonce._

Sakura-Angel: Sakura here with chapter five of _Hidden Ache_! You know, after I revived this story with chapter four, I just couldn't stop. So I started penning chapter five on the plane! Other characters are popping up more. I'm beginning to like Elena. Whenever I include her in a scene, she seems to take over a bit, heh. 

**

Hidden Ache

**

_"-ot myself, lately I'm foolish, I don't do this..."_

A skinny hand surfaced from the tangle of bedsheets, groundhog-style, searching for a certain button on a certain increasingly _annoying_ machine. 

He mumbled in only a way a man deprived of sleep could, cursing the alarm clock's inventor, the inventor's mother, the singer of the _stupid, stupid_ song, and _their_ mother. "Shut up, shut _up_..." The hand groped for the contours of the clock. 

_"-d I don't care... 'Cause your love's got the best of me..."_

The hand groped still, movements jerky. 

_"-ou're making a fool of me, you got me runnin' I don't care who sees, 'cause baby you got me, you g--"_

Reno surfaced from beneath the sheets to glare at his alarm clock, groggy enough to talk to it. "I can't be-_lieve_ you, you're supposed to be a friend, tell me what time it is, play _pleasant_ music. But you choose to wake me up with the most goddamn annoying song in the _universe_. You trying to tease me or something? Because it's _not_ gonna work." He was now stumbling over to the sink, tiled bathroom floor unsurprisingly cold beneath his feet, but still failing to open his eyes. He fiddled with the cold tap, still talking. "There's nothing to tease me about, really. She's got nothing on me. I've done this a million times, no actual emotional involvement," he convinced his alarm clock. "And I'm not about to start now." 

-------- 

Similarly in another apartment, a hand sprung from beneath the bedsheets to silence a machine. 

"Who calls at eight thirty on a saturday... honestly..." Tifa spoke into her pillow. She mumbled more unfriendly things into it before securing the phone in her hand and turning over onto her back. "Hello?" 

"Hey. Tifa?" 

She sat up against the headboard, legs splayed out into front of her. She rubbed her eyes, even though she didn't need to see and there was no 'sand' in her eyes. "Cloud?" He'd always been an early riser... "What're you calling about so early in the morning... ?" She could tell he was uncomfortable for some reason. 

"N-nothing. No, I mean something, otherwise I wouldn't have woken you up..." he trailed off. "Did I say I'm sorry for that? Because I am." 

Were she more awake, she would've chuckled reassuringly, or out of the realization that this was the first time she'd seen (well, heard, really) him _nervous_. She'd never seen him nervous, especially not with only her around. Well, not that she'd notice since she was too busy being nervous herself... 

"Hey, Teef?" 

Oh, right. "Yes?" Was his nervousness catching? 

"Would you mind it if I, um, stayed with you in your, you know, house? I mean, I know you're opening your bar soon but I was thinking that I'd... that I'd visit Midgar." Unknown to her, he mentally kicked himself for sounding like he'd just hit puberty or something. 

"Oh! Well!" Her voice became crackly over the payphone. "Of course!" He'd never heard her end so many statements all in a row with such a surprised lilt. It made him relax somehow. She always did that, even when she wasn't trying. 

"That's great, Teef! Um, listen, I've got some lady glaring at me therough the glass booth. I should go..." 

She laughed, imagining it. "Alright." 

"I'll be by in about a week, okay?" 

"Okay." 

He glanced outside. "Hey, I think she can read lips, 'cause she looks pretty angry." 

She smiled through the phone. Just his saying that made her feel better, like they had stopped reciting a script and decided to simply talk about silly things like good friends did. They hadn't much in common besides a shared past and they both felt obligated to stay in touch, but it was awkward. It was all the more amplified, to Tifa at least, because of her feelings for him. Hopefully with Cloud's visit, their relationship would change and they'd have something else to share besides small talk. 

"You better go then." 

He gave a small wave to the phone, stupid, but it felt natural. "See ya, Teef." 

"Bye," she said softly, and hung up. 

And sitting in the darkness of her room, she thought that this was a good way to feel in the morning. 

-------- 

"Why so grouchy this morning, Reno?" The increasingly lethal redhead's companion asked innocently. 

"You tell me, 'Lena, Miss-fancy-pants-restaurant-so-early-in-the-morning. Sheesh." He poked through at least six different types of jam offered in a little wicker basket. 

Her eyes arrowed slightly. "Do _you_ want to pay the bill?" 

The poking stopped abruptly. "I mean... I love you?" And he gave her such a fake, wide smile it creeped him out a little. 

"Okay already! Stop with the smiling!" 

He didn't. In fact, the smile got even wider. "Elena, you're in Wonderland," he said without moving his lips, playing cruelly on a nightmare she'd told him about once. 

"Not funny!" she exclaimed with closed eyes, shaking her head. A couple strands of hair were stuck to her lips. 

"Sir, miss, your breakfast? I hope you enjoy your meal?" The waiter (who Reno had already dubbed question-guy) delivered two plates of some sort of fancy, foreign _stuff_ and left, probably more than a little frightened at his attendees' behaviour. 

The redhead stopped smiling immediately. "'Lena." 

She opened her eyes cautiously. The collar of her shirt stuck up on one side, giving her a frazzled look. "What?" 

He glared at his plate, inspecting the ediblity of the concoction before him. "... the hell is this?" 

She instantly relaxed, clapping her hands together almost appreciatively. "It's only the best breakfast in the world!" 

He continued to poke at it, already categorizing parts of it into strangely coloured and flat-out strange. His skepticism never faded. "It doesn't look _safe_..." 

"And what's safe in your books?" She said through a mouthful of the stuff, as her collar drooped. "Hanging out with ex-AVALANCHE members?" 

How did she... oh, right. She used to be a Turk too. Turks had their ways. At least that was the only plausible explaination he could come up with. "Absolutely," he replied, and now wanting a distraction from speaking of the infamous martial artist, cut into his own doughy mixture. 

"Ah-ha!" Elena looked triumphant. "I knew it!" 

He was extremely focused on cutting some of the mixture away from the rest of it. "You knew what?" he asked, voice a little strained. 

"You totally just shut down there!" 

He sawed more, frown deepening. "What do you mean, Elena dear?" 

"Your face just closed off and you're distracting yourself with something you saw as revolting a few seconds ago! AND you called me 'dear'!" Her fork was pointed his way in a mildly accusatory manner. "What are you planning?" 

A piece of the meal was yanked off. "No idea what you're talkin' about." 

"Ohhh, let me in on it, Reno! You and Rude always hid things from me, _always_! Like when you replaced the lard with sugar for 'Deigger's coffee and he got so upset... you _know_ I would've liked to do something like that..." 

He let out a half-scoff, chewing the stuff with an open mouth. It wasn't too bad. "Yeah, that was good times." 

"... or when you put curlers in Tseng's hair when he fell asleep..." 

"Mm-hm." He nodded, hiding a flinch at the name. When Elena got like this, you just let her run. Besides, she was making herself forget about the whole Tifa-thing, and Reno couldn't refuse that. 

"... that was funny, because he didn't notice until he was halfway to the President's office..." 

"Yeah-huh," he said interestedly, while popping a berry into his mouth. 

"Speaking of," she shifted, voice dampening a little, which caught his attention. "Are you coming next tuesday? It's been awhile since..." she trailed off, looking down at her food. 

His eyes clouded, and his fork froze halfway to his plate. "... he died?" 

Elena's ability to kill a funny mood was amazing. She let out a strangled sigh, and lifted her hand to grab her glass of juice. "Yeah." 

He wanted to say that they should've done something sooner for him. But he knew why they didn't. Or rather, couldn't. His jaw clenched. He answered honestly, barely moving his mouth and slurring the words together. "I don't know." 

"But Reno!" her eyes were alight with shock. "He was a fellow Turk!" Too late she realized that maybe she shouldn't have mentioned that particular fact so loudly in a public place. But oh well. "Weren't you close? You were his second, even. How--" 

"Elena." Reno's mouth twisted into a sad imitation of a smirk. "It was _because_ we were Turks that we couldn't. Turks aren't allowed to have feelings." 

She looked caught, trapped in a net, helpless. "But..." she sputtered. 

"I know. We're not anymore. You can go. But I'm not sure if I can." And he stood, downing the last of his juice. "Sorry to eat and run. See you 'round, 'Len." 

She looked sorrowful, sitting there with her face upturned to him with her arms on her armrests, back straight. She looked ready to chase him. No, don't go, please, her posture said. But she stayed in her seat with her sad green eyes. 

He dodged a waiter serving the table opposite theirs, and saluted her. He knew she understood, so why was she wanting him to go? He turned around to leave, catching a bit of her saying something without meaning to. 

"Come. He was... ours." 

-------- 

Somberly she sat, staring down the toughest opponent she'd had in years. 

It had to be, since it couldn't blink. It was really just a cartoon face with large eyes and funny eyebrows, emblazoned on a bag that had been left in her bar yesterday. 

She felt like a little kid again, having stolen the cookie jar from the top shelf right before supper and on the verge of unscrewing the lid. The comparison wasn't too far off really, as the ex-Turk who'd left it gave her explicit instructions to not look in it, like a mother clucking out wasted instructions to her children. 

To open it or not to open it, that was _really_ the question. 

On one hand she had given him her word that she wouldn't, and Tifa liked to think she was a woman of integrity. 

On the other, she was bored. Two hours of relocating furniture so she could paint walls even _more_ did that to a person. On top of that, he wasn't even here. She could peek no problem, with him none the wiser. And who knew? Maybe it would alleviate her boredom for a while, whatever it was. 

Decisions, decisions. 

Her mind was made up for her though the second she heard the ding of the bell over the door. She knew right away by the funny rhythm his steps made that it was him, and stealthily relocated the bag... to the shelves on the other side of the bar by chucking it over the counter. 

"'Ey, Teef," he greeted her casually, apparently too lost in his thoughts to have caught her doing her guilty deed. 

"Morning." She gave him a half-smile, mouth quirked a little funny at a corner. "What brings you here so early?" 

He shrugged, wordless. 

Something was wrong with this picture. Reno was here in the morning. Reno was not talking. Reno was... acting very much like other people acted when they were sad. 

Up until now, Tifa had - coldheartedly, she realized with guilt - assumed that Reno had two modes: dead serious and incredibly silly. Sad wasn't even an option for him in her mind, at least not until now. 

Feeling happy and ready to tackle the world because of The Phone Call earlier, Tifa put a smile on her face - a full-fledged one - and shifted, sort of leaned in to look at his blank eyes. "What's up?" 

He twitched almost at her voice and looked up, a barely-there happy look in his eyes. She could tell he was distracted. And faking it. "Nothing." 

Yeah. Riiiiight. She wasn't buying it. He knew it. 

"I don't believe you, somehow." She tilted her head more at him, earrings swinging. She blinked her wine eyes at him. All these things he was noticing made her seem even prettier, or quirkier, or something. He liked it. The feeling of liking it came to him from far away though, and didn't penetrate him quite deep enough to actually feel like a feeling. He felt even more detached. He couldn't stop thinking of Tseng. 

"Reno? Okay, I _really_ don't think nothing's up now," her voice came to him through a seeming trance, chipper and light. "I'm not saying you have to, but you want to tell me what's with you?" 

"Hm," he said. 

Tsengtuesdaymemorial. Deadboss. TsengTseng. No, wait. That's not what he wanted to say to her. What _did_ he want to say? Er. 

"Erm," he said. 

"This could take awhile," she prodded him teasingly, elbow now on the counter, holding up that tilted head of hers. 

"Oh shut up," he half-mumbled uncharacteristically, looking up and in her direction, but not focusing his eyes to really look at her. 

What could he say? He could... lie and say no, it really is nothing, and have her get mad at him for not telling the truth (girls hated that, but when you told them the truth they got mad at you anyway), and then apologize to her smoothly with some nice Tseng. 

What? No. Dinner. Dinner was what he was thinking. 

Or. Or he could tell the truth and say he was thinking of his dead boss, who he'd been avoiding thinking about for months, and was now infecting his every thought. But if he told her that, she'd probably try to analyze him all psychologist-like, and he _hated_ that. 

"I'm thinking of my dead boss." 

What? Was his mouth not listening to his brain that entire time? 

She sat up suddenly, head still tilted on that neck of hers. It was a fine neck. Beautiful really. He loved necks, there was something about how graceful they were. 

Tseng. 

"I see," her tone had taken on a sensitive tone. He hated that. 

"The Wutain? Who'd been killed by Sephiroth?" He heard her pick her words carefully, stopping before she'd said 'killed'. What was she going to say? 'Run through'? 'Stabbed'? 

He hesitated. The last thing he needed was to read into what she was doing. "Yeah. Him," he said detachedly, not trusting himself to say more. He turned away from her to not show his stinging eyes. He gulped, unconcious of the action. 

Wait, what? _Stinging eyes_? What the fuck was going on? Was he gonna cry? Reno didn't cry. He hadn't for _years_. Not since he'd broken his leg, which is what made his gait a little awkward because one leg was a smidgen longer than the other. He was suddenly concious of having broken his leg. He felt an urge to touch it, to make sure it wouldn't break under his weight. 

He was _weird_ today. A lot of things were taking him by surprise, weren't they? And it wasn't even ten thirty. He was suddenly very tired. 

"Come on." He felt fingers grasping his own, pulling him. Her hands were soft. Wasn't it she who had said she disliked that whole unnecessary touching thing? What had happened to make her so happy? 

He walked dazedly, thoughts of her and Tseng flickering through his mind. He followed her into the back room where he'd laid her down not so long ago. He found that she was now doing the same for him. 

"I can see that you're feeling a little tired," she said softly, the gentle pressure of her fingers pushing him towards the bed. 

It went without saying, she knew and he knew. 

She understood. 

Tired... but not because of not having enough sleep. Tired of not having his boss around to bother. Tired of not having the old days, when the world was a bowl of cherries. But also tired of missing those days. Tired of the feeling of wanting, needing. 

She left. 

He didn't fall asleep. 


	6. Five Things To Do With Paint

_Disclaimer: I own nothing! (Meaning Square Enix owns all and they are amazing and I do not and am not.)_

Sakura-Angel: There was so much seriousness, I just _had_ to have some silly, lighthearted bonding. That makes me sound like I had a plan for this chapter though, which I didn't, at least not really (a rough outline, yeah?). The greater chunk of it was written in one night, which I should have spent studying for a math unit final. Heh. And as much as this entire chapter does not seem to contribute to the plot AT ALL, I promise that it does. Now go and read and leave some love if you so wish.

**Hidden Ache**

He expected her to laugh at him when he came out from the back room. The hair on the left side of his head was flat, his right pant leg was hiked up to show his black sock - the one that went a bit blobby grey in the wash - and he was sure his skin looked sallow.

Reno was not one to judge on appearances. Sure, it went towards a person's attractiveness factor, that made sense, but he never judged what kind of a person someone was based on what they looked like. People had layers, he knew.

But he was _sure_ he looked pretty damn bad.

"Hey," she greeted him, as his pant leg finally fell to cover his sock and hairy leg. He ran a hand through his hair to make it stand up, and the blood in his veins began to warm. He was fixed with one word.

"Hey yourself," he greeted back, and his groggy voice broke apart a little in his throat.

He expected her to keep up the facade, ask him if he slept well, but she simply motioned for him to come over and pointed at a tray and roller at her feet.

He complied. "What time is it?"

"Two thirty."

"Ah."

"... Hungry?"

"Very."

She pointed vaguely to her right. "It's cold, but it does the job."

"Thanks," he acknowledged, and he sauntered over in the direction she had pointed in. A plate lay on the relocated counter, heaped with vegetables and meat. No onions, he noticed. He had found out over their little info-fest that she hated onions, except for in onion rings. "Stirfry," he said outloud.

"Yep. Made it meself."

He sat down and immediately speared a bit of broccoli. He popped it in his waiting mouth and chewed, slowly, then quickly. He swore appreciatively.

"What?" she sounded almost frantic.

"This is good!" His eyes were wide. He leaned to his left, past the counter so he could look at her. "You _made_ this?"

"Yeah," she answered, unconcerned.

"It's _good_. _Really_ good," he said through a mouthful of chicken. "_Damn_ good."

"Well thanks, Reno," she said, sounding genuine.

"You have to make me more of this." His eyes hadn't grown smaller and his mouth had never been truly empty since that first bite. "Where did you learn...?"

"Here, I drifted from restaurant to restaurant."

"You were a chef?" He sounded confused.

The sploosh sound of a controlled drop of a roller into paint. "No, I just wanted to learn."

He shook his head, disbelieving but also not. What would he have been doing all those years ago in this same city, while she was watching over a pan of stir-fried something? Probably getting recruited by Tse-- "You're one strange girl, Lockheart."

"For wanting to learn a basic skill?"

"For..." He looked at her, and was met with the arresting sight of her red-brown eyes staring straight into his own mako green. He blinked. "Nothing."

She was about to open her mouth to say something, he could tell, but he cut her off. She was a good distraction. He didn't want to think about anything. Most of all... "So why are you so happy today?"

"Oh. I um. Ahem." She turned her back to him now, picking up the roller. "Cloud called," she said as casually as possible, as if giving a report to her superior, or like they were in on something together.

Which was true, in a way. When they were telling each other little things about themselves, he'd asked Why Cloud and she'd answered, stumbling over her words. He was the only one who'd really bothered to ask her, even though everyone knew, everyone saw. Even Aerith hadn't asked her. And so she felt, ridiculously, that he was the only one that had a shot at understanding.

"Ah, the blonde bimbo."

That didn't mean he was compassionate about it though.

"He is not! A 'blonde bimbo'!" She stomped her foot childishly, defending Cloud's honour.

He stuffed another piece of chicken into his mouth. "Is so."

"Is not!"

"Is so."

"Is...!" the word grew in volume and died in the air, hanging. "No, I'm not arguing with you about this. Especially not like _this_." Her face was the faintest shade of pink.

A piece of broccoli. Then, nonchalantly, "Why not?"

"Because!"

"Why not?"

"Becau- GOD!" She threw her arms up, roller still in hand, and trails of paint flew from it and into her hair, also splattering themselves on her cheek.

She stood there with her arms, now down, hanging at her sides, feeling completely defeated. And then she heard it.

Soft snickering.

Mild rage overtook the feeling of defeat. He was _laughing_ at her!

She narrowed her eyes at the back of the shelf-counter combo, even though Reno couldn't see her glare. And before either of them knew it--

He had the mystery colour all over the left side of his face.

"LOCKHEART!" He abandoned the stirfry, getting up and rocketing after her, already halfway across the room, laughing teasingly. He deftly grabbed his own can of paint, tearing at the lid until it fell with a clatter, and chased her around, paint sloshing all over his shirt. "I'M GONNA GET YOU FOR THAT!" He dunked his fingers in and whipped tendrils of paint at her, all while she shrieked gleefully, like she hadn't done since elementary. She dropped to the floor without warning in the middle of the chase, and he halted too late, letting her roll paint in one long streak across his pant legs. He returned the favour by dumping the remaining paint on her bare shoulder, and tackling her to the ground, forming a cacophony of flailing arms and funny coloured-paint streaks.

"TIFA, You little--"

"YOU'RE the one who laughed at me!" She squirmed without effort under his weight, obviously amused.

"And that meant you had to roll paint on the side of my fucking face?" He laughed, grip loosening on her upper arm.

"YES," she shouted at him, laughter brimming in her eyes. "I think it was justified." She gave him a smug look.

"I think you owe me a new pair of dresspants." His eyes flashed at her in delight.

"I think you should not handle a woman this way."

"I think," he put his face extremely close to hers, and her catch of breath did not go unnoticed by him. "That I can handle you however I want." A cocky glint was in his eye. He'd remembered his plan now, was back on track.

Her eyes widened immediately. "Oh, you _did not_ just say that."

"Yes, yes I did." And he got up off her, but not before pushing off. In that moment, he leaned his weight completely into her, putting their faces even closer. Feeling his warm breath on her, she flinched, anticipating something.

What that something was, she didn't know. But it didn't come.

Oh, who was she kidding. She knew what she was expecting. She knew _exactly_ what she was expecting. But it was _what_ she was expecting that was bothering her.

She was expecting him to kiss her.

And the scarier part was that she wanted it in that instant.

She reasoned to herself. It was a blend of everything. It was the proximity, the warmness and intimacy of their bodies so close together. She was just feeling so elated, adrenaline coursing through her. She was just so _happy_, really, truly happy, that it'd be like the cherry on a cake, to have some sudden romance tossed in. It was only her idealogic mind working in overdrive. Too bad it picked the completely wrong guy to do it with.

She heaved herself up and away from the floor, dusting the seat of her pants, and then realized it didn't really matter if her pants were dirty anyway. She was as dirty as a person could get, coated in sick amounts of paint. She walked over to where he was, staring at the back wall.

"Why are you painting this wall?" His question drifted to her as she approached.

"Why would I not?" She placed her hands on her hips. She stood beside him with her head cocked to the side, seemingly inspecting the lone patch of paint she had rolled on earlier.

"It's going to be covered by the shelves anyway," he kept staring at the wall. It wasn't nearly as interesting as Tifa, but he had suddenly remembered the plan, and he was sticking to it with conviction. The next step was to get her attached, and he usually succeeded in being a little aloof.

She looked at him. "The top won't be."

He kept on staring at the wall, looking it up and down. "Then just paint the top. No sense in wasting time on something, right?"

More staring. Only this was on her part. She was looking at him critically, wondering if this was another one of his deep, hidden-meaning messages. She chose to believe it wasn't. "But I _want_ to paint it all."

"Well, I _don't want_ you to paint it all," he teased her a little.

"Well if you're going be like that," she started, and walked away.

He forgot the act and turned around to watch her retreating back. What had happened?

It didn't take too long for her to come back with the remaining bucket of paint and place it on the floor. "Compromise? I've never liked fighting over small things." She smiled up at him from her crouch on the floor, prying off the lid of the paint bucket without looking.

Reno smirked at her. "Excuse me, but I think that thing that started the paint episode counted as something small."

"Oh... shush."

It hit him suddenly that Tseng used to say that, sometimes. He shook it off, refocusing. He inhaled a sharp breath and said, "Whatever. You know I'm right." And he tossed her a charmer's look, eyebrow raised, half a smirk, twinkle in one eye.

She physically stuttered, but just barely, and scoffed.

"Don't give me that," he was about to wag a finger at her, but decided that that was a little too playful. He didn't trip up nearly this much with other girls. He would've been frustrated at that, but he found he didn't care as much as he would've before he met her again. The challenge was blurring in between itself and just plain enjoying her company.

He was hit with an idea.

"Tifa," he said to the wall in front of him.

"Mm?" She looked up with wide, inquisitive eyes, like he took her off guard.

"I know how I want to paint your wall."

--------

"--d she dressed me up! Stockings, high heels, the whole bit!"

A loud laugh. "You're kidding!"

"I would _not_ make up anything that traumatizing," he deadpanned.

Hours later, the infamous pair (well, each on their own they were infamous, they were not infamous as a couple if you were getting that impression. That would be an impression neither of them wanted, oh no) sat on Tifa's paint splattered floor in their paint splattered clothes against a paint splattered wall, trading more stories.

She was laughing a lot today. He was probably the reason why. He felt proud of himself for some reason, proud that he could coax something so pretty out into the air.

"Why did you go?"

"She _forced_ me! I didn't even like her, she literally dragged me to her house and told me I was her boyfriend, I had to do everything she wanted, and--"

"Dressed you up like a little girl!" She burst into a new fit of laughter.

"Yeah." He shook his head, supposedly forlorn. "That was a pretty shitty day."

Her laughter was subsiding.

"So what do you think of your new wall?" he asked her.

She half-looked over her shoulder, even though she couldn't see any of the wall. "I like it."

"I agree." He nodded. "It's hot stuff."

Said wall was now half covered in paint and dry, which was partly thanks to Reno blowing on it (she said he was stupid for doing it, he turned and blew air in her face). The top was exactly what Tifa wanted, solid mystery colour paint, no imperfections visible.

The bottom though, the part that no one would see, was all Reno. He'd dunked his fingers in the paint again and drew little cartoons, most of Rude and Elena and himself. They involved Rude being stoic, Elena being airheaded and him being the star. Those were short-lived though, and he dunked his fingers in again and drew something new while Tifa stood on a ladder above him, painting away. He drew the curve of a hip and a nice pair of legs (in his own opinion). It was from the back so he wouldn't have to draw-paint a face. The doodling eventually blossomed into a person, who, he realized, was standing right above him. She was dressed differently in the picture, but it was definitely her. She'd probably realize it too, once she saw it.

"What's that?"

Eh? Where'd she come from? He felt a sudden urge to thrust himself over the picture, nothing like himself. "Just a doodle." He shrugged.

She thrust her face incredibly close to the picture over his shoulder, and peered. "Is that..."

"What?" he interjected, hoping to prompt a "Never mind" from her.

No such luck. She looked at him funny. "Is that me?"

"Not that it matters," he said, already shrugging it off, "But yes."

She peered some more. "It's quite good."

Eh?

"I don't know what possessed you to draw my backside... and write "ASS" across my butt, but it's very nice."

"Yeah well," he said, holding back a laugh, "I'm just that crazy. Thanks for the compliment, even if it was on yourself." And without thinking about it, he added a tad sarcastically, "You're a very nice subject."

She twisted her mouth like a little kid and gave him a small glare. "Nyeh."

"You love me, you know it." He grinned at her also like a little kid, eyes closed, mouth as big as it could go.

She dodged further silly analyzations by him, saying, "So do you have anymore brilliant ideas for spiffing up my boring wall?"

"As a matter of fact," he said with a superior look, sauciness settling back in, "I do."

"Then by all means," she mimicked his tone, and spread her arms to the wall. "Show me."

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "This will require your co-operation, you realize."

"Now I'm not so sure."

"Too late," he said, and jammed her left side into the wall, adjusting her pose like a photographer.

"What are you doing?" she asked, strangely mellow in reaction to his grabbing and ramming her into her own wall. The day was so long, and she'd spent so much of it with him. She felt used to him. She let him take one of her arms and put it out behind her, bending it at the wrist.

He put a flat hand against her stomach, another against her back, and bent her at the waist. "I'm painting you."

Out of context and with any other person, she would've felt flattered instead of slightly appalled and curious. "Why would you want to paint me like this? Why should I want you to paint me like this?"

He lifted her other hand to her mouth, turned it palm up. "Because you love me." And quick as possible, he grabbed a soft brush, dunked it in the paint, and started tracing her figure onto the wall.

She could've moved, but she didn't. "Why this pose?"

"You'll see," he said mysteriously, just like that first day they'd met each other again, and trailed paint past her lower back, outlining her hand, stuck out at a funny angle.

This was exactly what he needed to pull her in. A day of closeness, breaking down barriers even more, carried over from their trading little insignificant things about themselves. She was already wavering, he was trained to know. Though he might not appear to be, Reno was a master at reading into the actions and reactions of people. He knew a scary amount about the human psyche. It really helped on missions. And well, this could be a mission if he really wanted it to be. Reno had a thing for mixing business with pleasure.

They switched off, Tifa tracing and Reno being traced. The final product was the both of them in the same pose (which _would've_ embarassed Reno were he not a man and able to take it, said he), facing the other. They looked like, she finally understood, that they were blowing kisses at each other. Mockingly of course. Needless to say, Reno was incredibly amused and made a lot of wiseass comments. Tifa was embarassed and asked many times over why she let him do it in the first place.

And that led them both up to now, with their revived game of trading random obscure facts or moments about themselves, laughing in between Reno's Dress-up and Tifa's Next. They talked late into the night, thoughts of Tseng flitting in and out of Reno's mind, but he would ignore them.

The next day they would wake up on her floor with sore backs, eyes cracking slowly open in the morning light, and continue the game.


	7. No One at the Wheel

_Disclaimer: I own nothing!_

Sakura-Angel: Longest chapter yet, I believe. Speed written in like, three days (one night, one day, one morning, all in a row). I just couldn't tear myself away from it. I'm afraid it's a bit convoluted though. Seems to happen when I get too involved, and just assume the reader can follow me. Tell me if this is so, hm? And feel free to tell me other things too! (Like if maybe someone is OOC, because I'm fearing that as well.) If I'm feeling crazy, I might revise the chapter even.

**Hidden Ache**

"I never thought I'd _ever_ wake up with a girl like _this_," said he, tiredly reaching up to touch the stiff paint caked on the side of his face.

A groan came from the body next to his, irritation in the tone already. She winced visibly against the bright light, and then again at the tense muscle in her lower back. She responded, "Shut up." And as much as he wanted to believe it was the fond type of shut up, qualities in it were abundant in the annoyed and serious kind.

"Guh," he said in response to nothing, and flopped heavily onto his back, elbows bent and neck vertabrae digging into the wall behind them.

"What did I say about the shutting up?" She also flopped onto her back and leaned against the wall. She peered downed her shirt in that newly-awake way. "Ugh, I have paint in my _bra_."

Were he more awake he would've teased her and asked what else was in there, but he chose to loll his head to the right, her direction, and open his mouth stupidly without knowing what to say.

"Didn't your mom tell you that was rude?" She pointed at his hanging jaw with a drowsy finger.

"Didn't _your mom_ tell you pointing was rude?" He smirked lazily at her.

She blinked a little, slightly awakened by this. She was also awakened by the thought that his expression was almost seductive. "Yeah, well."

He woke slowly, in stages. He knew that he was in about the third of five. "I think I need to clean this shit off."

"I think..." She got up slowly and felt her back for paint. "You're right."

"Wanna take a shower?" He raised his eyebrows suggestively.

"You're weren't this dirty last night," she said without thinking, then realized the innuendo and held up a finger to silence him from making another remark. "But yeah, I think we both need showers. Shower_s_. Plural. Seperate. Showers."

He laughed lightly at her almost-teasing. "Mm," he stretched out his legs and arms, still slouched on the floor. "Whadda you..." Yawn. "Got planned today?" He asked this as a genuine question, no shady intentions, and surprised himself.

"Aside from a very long shower by myself? Moving more furniture and stocking up." She stretched also, imitating him without realizing it.

"Mmm. What day is it?" he asked/yawned. He looked out the window subconciously, and suddenly closed his eyes and jerked his head away simultaneously from the blinding light. "Geez," he muttered to himself.

"Twenty-sixth. Tuesday." She yawned, echoing his movements again.

"Mmm," he said again, and sniffed. Tuesday. Tuesday... what was so important about tuesday? It niggled at him like--

Memorial.

He froze at this connection, but started moving again to keep his mind off the subject. Besides, it wasn't for another week.

It wasn't for another week.

That meant a week of avoiding Elena. Elena, the blabbery psycho. (He liked her, but she _was_ a total nutjob.) He could just _not_ deal with her right now. And if Rude were to get in on it, he'd just do the guilt-trip thing without even _talking_. Damn.

"I'm going home. Shower and everything."

"Hn?" He looked up to see the martial artist wrapped in her white coat, keys jangling in between her fingers.

"You should probably leave too, unless you want to stand guard," she told him.

"Right," he said distractedly, and grabbed his blazer. He punched his arms through the sleeves, wondering what sort of looks they'd get from passersby, what with all the layers of paint they wore.

--------

The week flew by quickly, and much to Reno's surprise, he wasn't hounded by either Elena or Rude. They made not a single peep, and by monday, Reno started to feel a little nervous. He wasn't accustomed to nervousness, and it didn't sit with him well, especially not when the ones making him nervous were people he had somewhat come to care for.

And boy, was he right to feel nervous. Because that lunchtime, they pounced.

"Reno!" a happy voice called to him from the throngs of beaten down people. They seemed surprised at how this girl could be so cheery, and flowed around her, giving her and her strange, intimidating companion a wide berth. "Hey!"

He mildly cursed his distinguishable hair, ran agitated fingers through it, and walked over to his former crew. "Hey."

"Wanna come to lunch with us?" She asked loudly, as if the minimal chatter on the sidewalk needed to be quashed.

He put on a large we're-all-friends-here smile and looked companionably at the two. "Y'know what, I've got to do a--"

"Reno," a stony Rude stared him down from behind his sunglasses.

He bit the inside of his lower lip, still feeling agitated, shifting into on-guard mode. He wagged a finger at his straight-backed friend. "Rude, don't use that look on me. You _know_ that look is for interrogating dirty freaks. _I_ don't use that look on you. I _could_. I _invented_ that look, Rude." He knew Rude was a million times better at it than he, but he wasn't about to admit that.

"Just come, Reno," a pleading Elena tugged the sleeve of his coat. "Come onnnn."

"You," he turned on her and away from Rude, still lifting that reprimanding finger, "Are fucking annoying. I've got a fully loaded gun, 'Lena. And my fingers are a little twitchy today."

Not in the least daunted, the female of the group pulled Reno into the same restaurant they had dined in a week ago, Rude trailing behind.

They entered and were seated straight away by what seemed to be five ushers. Places were set hurriedly. An anonymous brunette handed them menus. And then there were three.

"Reno--" she said.

"Guys--" he said.

They said in unison, "If this is about the memorial..."

He paused, surprised.

"We're not asking you to come."

What? He was prepared for a myriad of things, happenings, strategies and guilt trips beyond imagination. But he was not prepared for this. "What?" He felt suddenly, in the pit of his stomach, that he was suspended in midair, thousands of miles above the ground. Like he had just jumped off a cliff, condemned himself.

Rude cleared his throat, as he often seemed to do before speaking. "If you don't want to, you don't have to."

Reno leaned on the table with both elbows in the exact way etiquette told you not to. He looked from Rude to Elena to Rude to Elena. He felt like laughing hysterically, like some crazed evil villian about to set a plan into motion. Instead, he blew air out his nose amusedly and cocked an eyebrow, felt the mako in his eyes flare. "I. Don't. Have to. Come." He leaned back in his chair. "That's what you're saying."

The blonde nodded almost childishly, and he was reminded at how naïve she really was. "It would be nice if you came though."

Nice? "Nice, huh?" He felt himself on the edge of losing it. He smiled a small smile, and knew that it was frigid. He blinked, repeated the word, "Nice."

He felt volatile, unhinged. He wanted to yell the stupidest, nonsensical things. He wanted to throw himself off a cliff and snap straight back up into the air like an insane bird, divebombing for the thrill of it. He wanted his body to be wracked with spasms so he would be pained and exhausted and could just lie there and drift asleep, no thoughts of Tseng, no dreams of Tseng, in which he burned in the bluest flames and all he could do was stand there.

"Reno? You okay? You look weird."

He hadn't realized he'd been clenching his jaw, and stopped. "Thanks," he replied, cutting as he hadn't been for a long time.

"No, I didn't mean it..." she trailed off, guilt at his response silencing her.

"Listen guys, I really don't have the time for this. Sorry." He got up to leave with so much momentum, he smashed his thigh into the bottom edge of the table, jostling the rest of them.

Elena threw her hands across the table towards him in a useless gesture. "No! Reno, please... stay. I'll pay. It'll be like the old da--"

"Old days, shmold days!" he yelled almost drunkenly at her, and she flinched visibly backward. Patrons began to murmur, but of course Reno didn't care. If anything, he gestured wildly with his arms, attracting more attention.

"I don't _give_ about the old days, 'Len! In fact, if I could _erase_ the old days, I would! I want them gone! I don't want to think about what used to be! I _hate_ the freakin' old days!"

"Reno," she said quietly, to counter his yelling and get his attention, "I _know_ you don't think that. You accept everything you are. You take pride in it. You're only like this now because of--"

"Because of what? Because of the memorial tomorrow? You know what, 'Lena, Rude? Take your memorial. I don't give a fucking _shit_ about your stupid memorial. I'm leaving."

And so he did.

--------

He walked aimlessly, anger brewing. He frowned and took long strides, arms swishing dramatically at his sides. A pain pulsed behind his right eye, making him squint and seem even more menacing.

He felt like the scummiest of scum. He was hungry, pained and above all, a giant ass.

Not that he cared much about being one. It was just _who_ he was being an ass to that bothered him. He had exploded at one of his only actual friends (Rude too, but it was mostly at Elena, which made him feel worse because she hadn't done anything but try to keep them together). And _even_ worse, it was over something he had kept hidden and in-check for the longest time, the most sensitive secret he had ever kept. To himself, about himself. Mention of Tseng was like a hit at his Achilles' heel, a cheap, dirty shot, a key to him that he hadn't even known existed. His latest blowup just proved it - he was losing control of himself, hardly even knew himself anymore.

There was a grand total of two places he could go to remedy this, refocus. And then he realized that one of them held both. What luck.

He spun abruptly around on his heel, wind whipping his hair in his face in protest, and started towards her bar, mind already on the challenge and the liquor.

--------

Tifa scrubbed the paint on the floor. Hard. Harder. Despite her considerable strength, it refused to come out.

She sighed, defeated. It seemed that now she'd have to go and get some paint remover, which she hated the smell of.

She'd smelt plenty of disgusting chemicals over her lifetime, but she held a special, twisting place in her gut for paint remover. It was another stupid and insignificant detail to her, but it was true. She was pretty much the only person who knew about small things like that.

Except for _him_ of course. You know who. Well, you might not, because whenever she thought about a male it was usually her blonde friend, known from childhood. But _this_ him was a different one. A more volatile, foul-mouthed, but at the same time, incredibly silly him.

Reno.

He'd come by a couple times in the past week after the paint episode, and they had eaten more Wutain takeout and swapped more memories. She was finding a companion in him. It was so strange.

She enjoyed his company, his silly insinuations and terrible jokes. She even laughed a little more at his insistence that she was in love with him.

What a theory that was.

_Jingle. Taptaptap._

"Hey Teef," a masculine voice echoed.

"Hey," she said relaxedly, proving her ease at being around him now. She twisted her torso, expecting the focus of her thoughts to stride up, but lo and behold...

Cloud Strife.

"Cloud!" she cried, surprised, delighted, and... disappointed? She pushed it aside quickly.

"This place looks great," he said sincerely, taking in the ceiling and the shelves and the occasional crate. "Though I can't say much for the paint colour." And he smiled at her to let her know he was kidding. Or half kidding, at least.

She pouted at him anyway, still a little unsteady at his sudden arrival. "Thanks a lot... meanie."

"Meanie? I am offended."

"Well... you are a meanie," she said. "You left me all by my lonesome, after all." And strode away so he couldn't see her serious face, which betrayed all the lightness in her supposedly teasing accusation.

None the wiser, he looked at her back fondly and remained planted by the door. "So how are you?" he asked, choosing to skip over the fact that he apparently a meanie.

"I'm fine. Except for the fact that I'm conversing with a meanie." Her better side was released around him.

"You're not letting go of that, are you?" He chose this moment to walk up to her. Being around her made him feel so much better.

She turned around, dazzling him with her mischevious smile and bright eyes. "Not for anything in the world."

He was shocked into momentary silence. She seemed something extra. Last time he saw her, she was all sharp angles and tight-lipped agreement. She wasn't nearly this happy.

"All right, spill it." He walked over to a stool and dragged it out in front of the counter, located back against the mural. "What's got you so happy?"

"Hm?" the noise curled a little at the back of her throat. She stepped behind the bar. Maybe it was bartender's instinct.

"Who are you seeing? What have you eaten? Have you drunk in the last 12 hours?" he prodded her more, the blue in his eyes playful.

"I think the real question is: why are you so happy? You're supposed to be Mr. Solitary. Mr. Somber. Mr. Who-Stole-My-Hair-Gel," she laughed back at him, glad that they had mended the broken bridge between them so easily. It was always what she wanted.

"Don't take this out on the coif, Tifa," he shook his head in between sentences, "Tell me?"

Her manners pleaded to be played with. "By all means, you first."

"Ladies first."

"Well, in that case."

A long, expectant pause. Finally, he got it.

"Hey!"

Laughter rung out in all directions.

"Alright, alright. If you really want to know," she conceded, and leaned closer to him in that confidential way. She couldn't help but feel a little happier at his leaning in as well.

"I... had some really good takeout today."

Cloud drew back, rolling his eyes at her in good humour. "That was horrible, Teef."

She shrugged, as if it was out of her hands. "It's true. Now what about y--"

"Oh LOOOVEBUCKET!"

Both occupants of the soon-to-be-bar looked up at the redhead standing in the door.

"Reno?" Cloud stood up, instantly on guard. He looked back at Tifa confusedly for a second. "Did he just call you lovebucket?"

"Uh, yes," she responded, not taking her eyes off Reno. The tiniest bit of panic registered.

"What's goin--"

"Gimme something strong, Teef. I had a crap day," the infamous ex-Turk said to the ceiling, oblivious to the extra occupant of the bar. He was twirling his magrod around his finger, and flipped it high into the air with a flick of his wrist. It brushed Tifa's ceiling and landed with precision onto his forehead. It balanced there, and Reno stuck out his arms goofily, taking small steps towards the bar. "Fancy, huh? I bet you've never seen anything like it before."

"No indeed, I have not," she said quietly, and ran over to the seemingly drunk Reno, confusing Cloud beyond belief.

"Uh, Teef...?" he voiced his confusion, caution also laced throughout his half-question.

She managed a reassuring smile, though she herself wasn't very assured of how reassuring it was. "It's okay, Cloud. He's. He's not. Erm. Reno. Reno, could you take that..."

But he had already taken his weapon off his forehead and directed his gaze at the blonde. "Ah. So, Spike has arrived."

The strangest feeling went through Cloud at that moment. Seeing Reno, one of the men he hated the most in the world, scrutinizing him with nearly the same eyes as Cloud himself. He was peering through an almost-hole created by Tifa and her arm, reaching up to grab an already disappeared magrod from his forehead. Their proximity made him queasy. They were clearly comfortable around each other. They might have even been a couple, if you didn't know any better. Reno, teasing her, form all relaxed and characteristic of someone enjoying a moment. Tifa, knowingly taking the bait and reaching up with a smile on her face. Reno, staring down a potential girlfriend stealer. At least that's how it looked to him.

He resisted the urge to swallow. "Teef, I'm gonna go. Maybe I'll stay in a hotel tonight or something."

"No! Cloud, I told you you could stay, and you are, okay?" Her arm moved out of its seemingly frozen position, hovering above Reno. She dug around a coat pocket hurriedly and presented a key to him.

"You can find the extra room no problem. Have a shower or something, unpack. I'll be there soon. I just need to close up early," she sounded breathless, even though she had done nothing to exert herself.

"Alright, Teef. Be careful?" He glanced at her meaningfully, not caring if Reno saw.

"It's alright, really..." she told him as he stepped quietly out.

"Huh. You're quite welcome."

"What?" she turned to him, _him_, him who was so disruptive and loud and constantly around her. He knew the most about this. Or he should. Why had he done that? "Did you just say what I think you said?"

Okay. She was mad. This was not what he needed. He relied on her to be joking and happy so he could be too. This was quickly dissapating, and his real mood that lay underneath would not be pleasant for either of them. "Yeah. I mean, he's gone now, isn't he?" he tested her, cockily leaning against a painted wall.

"Are you drunk? Or did you just forget that I was really looking forward to this?" she nearly yelled at him. "Reno, you _know_. You know, and you go and... and _do_ tha--"

"What are you saying, Teef? Are you saying that it's okay if we hang out, but only in secret? Only if no one else knows?" he countered her calmly, struggling against his explosive self. He wanted out, having come out earlier that day. He was ravenous.

"No! I... I just wanted to catch up, talk... uninterrupted. It's been a long time. I just wanted to be with him for awhile. Enjoy his company and maybe have him enjoy mine, and then... and then you have to leer at him like he's something on the Discovery Channel..."

"Teef, Teef," he interrupted her again, "Just. Calm down, would ya? I didn't plan on him running his little wuss ass outta here. And hey, I'm sorry if he's that antisocial. You just looked sorta tense. He was staring at you like you were nuts." He saw her about to cut in, and raised his voice, "BUT, but I understand, okay? I _know_, like you said, and I get it, okay? You like him, _have_ liked him for what, eight years? You gotta past, you saw some twinkly magic in him the day you met again, you wanna break that barrier, blahblahblah." He finished. "Okay?" He found miraculously, that his past mood was actually falling away, and he was focused almost completely on the conversation. This was unheard of. Reno always thought of _something else_, even when laughing.

She expected to get madder at his speech, but softened, surprising herself and probably him as well. "I never said that," she said softly, unaccusatory.

"What?" He was confused thoroughly at her statement and with himself.

"I never said we had a barrier between us." She looked at him like he was someone different. Changed.

"Well, I think it was pretty obvious, wasn't it?" he said, not realizing he let his own perception slip in.

"No. No, only my closest friends know. Because they were around him and I everyday." She took a step forward, not cautious or hesitant, but seeming that way. She looked searchingly into his eyes. "How closely were you listening to me?"

He gave her a what-the-hell expression, his squinted right eye finally finding a use. She flinched not a bit.

"I'm an assassin, Teef. I gotta listen closely. It's second nature. Even when I'm not on a job."

She wasn't fazed at all by his explanation. She felt something mounting, the flurry of emotions at the combined arrival of Cloud and the past week and a bit with Reno and the meeting between both. A lightness, an urge to just laugh everything off. A dawning of something, you could say. "That's not it."

He was beginning to feel a little strange. Why did she keep moving forward, looking at him like he was someone new, right into his eyes with her own? Her head was tilted on that lovely neck, eyes narrowed not quite enough to be menacing. And the words that slipped out of her mouth? What was with those?

"Uh. No, I'm pretty sure that's what it is."

She smiled at him, just a tug at the left corner of her mouth. "You _care_ about what I say, don't you?"

What? He was getting spooked. "Erm..." He couldn't remember the last time he was so completely at a loss for words.

"You do. You listen hard and analyze what I say..."

He could feel his eyes pop out a little.

"Because you care about me!"

What! This was definitely spooky. This was not Tifa behaviour. "Alright," he levelled a sturdy look at her, drawling as casually as possible with his freaked out disposition, "Where'd ya put Tifa?"

"You care about me!" she laughed, ignoring him. She laughed like it was a real knee-slapper, like she hadn't in a long time. She did a lot of things she hadn't done in a long time around him.

"Lockheart, lemme get one thing straight in that cocked up head of yours." He walked over to her, a mysterious shot of adrenaline driving him and making him shake slightly. Had his mood from before - the unhinged, more raw, crazy side of him - been transferred to her?

He gripped her shoulders, feeling weird at her gleeful expression framed between his two arms, straight and thin. He'd seen her happy and delighted and full of mirth, but he had never seen her laughing so much out of some _twisted_ (not to mention absolutely untrue) realization.

"I. Do not hold any inkling of care for you. I talk to you because you're amusing and I'm bored and because you own a bar. Comprendé? I. No. Care for. You."

She just kept laughing, albeit weaker than before. "You, Reno Somethingorother... care about me..." she shuddered with laughter.

Crazy. She had gone crazy.

What other explanation could there be? Certainly not the one that involved him actually _caring_ for her. That was just ridiculous. Whoa, slow down, you're talking crazy.

"See you, Reno. I'm sure you'll find me again. Since you care about me so much," she teased, holding back laughter. And then she walked out, not even caring in her happiness what he, or others, could do to her not-yet-open bar.

He stood alone in the room they had painted together. He didn't even have the comfort of the self-imposed challenge anymore.

When had he lost so much control?


	8. Things Gone By

_Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven and all derivations thereof do not belong to me. Sankyuu (thank you, in Sakura language).  
I also do not own that song by Prozaak from like, five hundred years ago, titled _Sucks to be You_, or so I believe._

Sakura-Angel: (_Some one-sided Tseng x Aerith in here. If you don't like... tough XD_)  
Alright! Chapter eight written in like, three hours. It _is_ quite short though, so I guess it's not that huge an accomplishment. What I'm impressed with is that I managed to write two chapters for this in a month.  
Anyways, the chapter goes Tifa, Cloud, Reno. Yes, I am including Cloud. As much as I know you'd love it to be all ReTi all the time, Cloud is a huge part of Tifa's life, and I'm going to acknowledge that.  
Read and review if you wish.

**Hidden Ache**

Tifa left her bar on the high of leaving Reno speechless. She grinned like an idiot, feel-good adrenaline pumping through her veins.

She hadn't ever done anything like that in her life! Ever! She had never thought that way, or laughed that way, or been so cracked up at any realization. The idea that Reno could care for her in the slightest bit was somehow hysterical.

As she walked down the sidewalk to her residence, the shine began to dull.

Who was she being here? Just a couple weeks ago she would've been freaked out beyond belief if the slightest possibility that he cared had occured to her. She would've kicked him away as hard and as flailingly as possible, holding tight to her notions of blonde hair and the bluest (the _only_) eyes in existence.

But now she was delirious? She detected some of his influence in her actions, and was mildly alarmed.

She was angry, so angry and sad when he had prodded her and told her things she didn't want to hear. Not from him, not from this man she didn't know, not from this man who had pointed a gun in her face.

And then he turned around and changed her radically, making her laugh and find some weird twisted humour in everything. He took away her loneliness without the slightest idea that he was doing so. He had sprinkled bits of his Reno-isms all over her, so small she couldn't see them and couldn't scrub them off.

She worried, pressed her crossed arms into her ribcage. _Why_ was the idea of him caring about her so _damn_ funny? She knew the obvious answer - cold-blooded assassin caring about his old enemy? Ludicrous.

But that wasn't it. There was something else, something hidden that she couldn't think of and frankly, didn't really want to think of. She remembered that day in her bar - his face disconcertingly close, her hot breath hitching as he pushed away, every little bit of her on alert--

And then she stopped. She was scaring herself now.

She had bigger worries anyway. She knew she had changed, even if it was only the smallest shift. She swallowed.

What did Cloud think of her now?

She quickened her pace.

--------

Cloud sat on the guestroom bed, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. He found that he really hated that word, _guestroom_. He really hated that he felt like a guest, and sitting in this room in _her_ house only reminded him more of it.

Why? Well, the answer was obvious of course.

He couldn't get that image out of his head, the ex-Turk peering at him through the hole formed by her reaching arm and her pretty neck and her happy face.

It bothered him. It bothered him a lot. She had gone off and made a bit of a new life, and he was a guest in it. Left him behind, just like that. It bothered him more that he could be so selfish to think such a thing, to wish against something that seemed to make her happy.

It also bothered him that he couldn't figure _it_ out.

He didn't love Tifa. He didn't love Aerith. _Why_ did he feel like he was missing something? The obvious thing to look for was a companion, but now he was starting to wonder, _is that what I really need?_ He came back for Tifa's excellent advice, despite the awkward role she played in his universe. He could always rely on her for her shoulder, but now that she seemed to be spread a little thinner, he felt wrong asking her.

There was also that nitpicky issue of exactly why he felt such a strong twinge at seeing them together, seeing as he was _pretty damn_ sure did not love her.

"Cloud?" a voice drifted up the stairs. A door closing softly.

He lifted his face from the floor to the window. "Up here, Teef," he called back.

Her footfalls came up the steps and then her figure was in the door. "Hey."

His hands fell and he twisted his torso to look at her. "Hey."

She stepped into the room and continued striding to stand in front of him. "Um, hey... listen. Reno's not... not like that anymore. He just comes by sometimes, he's like a... like a friend. Barely that."

He felt guilty that she felt the need to explain herself. "Teef, you don't need to explain."

She gulped, interpreting his seeming-pensiveness and the statement put together as angry. "No, I do. You came here expecting me to be your friend, and I just... brushed you off..."

He breathed out heavily, and looked her right in the eye. He was gripping her arms loosely before he knew it. "Teef, _listen_. I'm not mad," he said as earnestly as he had ever said anything in his life. His gaze fell to her collarbone. "You don't have to explain yourself to me. If anyone should be explaining themselves around here, it's me." He couldn't look at her, and let go.

She gulped again, and decided to not pursue it. She felt something else was a little more important. "What is it?"

He sat there, heart thumping. He couldn't ask her, couldn't tell her...

Her instincts told her to sit beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, but her brain told her not to. Instead, she took a step closer and leaned down. "What's wrong, Cloud?"

"I guess... I just feel awkward around him." It wasn't a lie, but it also wasn't the biggest Wrong With Him.

She sensed this, and felt her heart fall a little lower in her chest. What could he not tell her?

"He _did_ try to kill us a few times," he said, to fill up her silence.

She sat down next to him, feeble light from the window illuminating them both. She felt the urge to take his hand, but squashed it and instead placed a hand on his shoulder.

She smiled kindly at him. "You just tell me when you feel like it then."

He looked at her finally, the greatest appreciation in his eyes.

They spent the rest of the day together, flitting in and out of talk and small talk.

--------

Reno woke before his worthless alarm clock could blare out another tune. Yesterday it was a pop song smack dab in the middle of the chorus. His frown intensified at remembering it: _sucks to be you, I know I know... sucks to be you..._

He was pretty sure his alarm clock was part of a conspiracy to make him go crazy.

He turned the shower on and stepped into the blasting hot water... after he realized he still had his clothes on.

His crap memory (well, not really, it was actually pretty good most of the time) was also probably part of this conspiracy.

He stripped and stepped into the shower, rubbing his temples.

Others in this conspiracy were two ex-Turks whose names would go unmentioned, and a certain bartender who had lost her mind only yesterday.

He closed his eyes tighter against the torrent of water.

_Care about her_. He almost shivered, except it was too hot for it.

Care. About her. Like hell he did. It took a lot more than a few days of painting and the best stir fry ever to win _him_ over.

Except that's not all he did or shared with her, is it? And what about her herself? She was a pretty enticing--

_Shut up_, he told his mind, which was definitely in a conspiracy against him. He was only very dimly aware that he had just argued with himself.

She was hot, he agreed with himself. But he denied that she was enti-- _attractive_ in another way. That was why he had picked her in the first place, right? She was pretty, he was bored...

_But that's not all_, he insisted, and he had to shut himself up. He should really stop this dual thoughts thing, it's confusing. He shut off the water with his foot and dried himself off.

She _had_ done _something_ for him yesterday though, besides throw him completely off his intended challenge. She had showed him without actually intending to that the past was the past, and that they were both stuck in it. He was stuck on Tseng, his dead boss, and she was stuck on Cloud, her probably dead-in-the-heart crush (that was his own bias, but you couldn't tell). He had always been proud of his past, and he still was. He had to go acknowledge it and move into the present, and maybe that would help him stop missing things gone by so much.

He breathed in and out. Today was tuesday, and he had something to do.

He determinedly put on his old dress pants, a crisp, white collared shirt (three buttons undone of course) and his old navy blue blazer. He clipped his magrod to one of his beltloops to feel a little more like himself, and shook off what litle water remained in his hair.

He closed the door behind him and took the steps down two at a time (he remembered doing this once before, it ended up with his smacking his face into a wall). His magrod slapslapslapped against his thigh, and he had to mentally clamp down on himself so he wouldn't reach back and stop it.

He arrived at an old church, every inch covered in flowers. He had to look at the door for a few minutes before he could go in. He knew why they had picked this old place for the service. He had to furrow his brow and let his breathing get even, because he was reminded that _he_ (he, he, he) was more than what he saw all day, that he had loved and lost too.

The doors creaked and his footsteps echoed up to the damaged ceiling, and he kept his head held high. He kept it up because even though he knew it was okay to cry, he thought the possibility of being exposed would keep him from doing it. He felt silly crying.

Elena and Rude were standing there already, each in their old outfits too. They seemed to be waiting for him, and they all acknowledged each other's presence. They had all come early.

It was nothing fancy. Tseng (_Tseng, Tseng, Tseng_) wasn't fancy. He was never elaborate in the way he did things or loved things.

Reno looked at Elena, tearing already. He felt the saddest twinge in his strained neck, and felt the urge to say something. He surprised everyone when he spoke, voice cracking pathetically, "You guys better not ask me to hold your hands."


	9. Stop Slow Start

_Disclaimer: FFVII belongs to Squenix. Squenix is not Sakura._

Sakura-Angel: I hope you will excuse any spelling mistakes. I've been finding that those pop up more than usual as of late, and since I write/type my stories up in notepad... well. You can figure that out.  
As for the content, I hope you enjoy. 'Tis quite serious in contrast to past chapters, and also more confusing. I really hope that I'm not the only one who can follow this story, because there'd be little point in posting this story, yes? Anyways. This chapter takes a Tifa-ish turn because the poor girl's got a rather large (blonde) issue to work out. Reno's been through his. Anyways, here you are. I don't usually ask for reviews, but I'd love one for this chapter in particular. Thank you for reading.

**Hidden Ache**

He saw Tseng in his dreams. 

He was dying, the bluest flames flickering. He was bleeding heavily, though Reno couldn't see where from. He wasn't screaming though.

In all the other dreams Reno had dreamed, Tseng was always screaming. He wailed a wail of the purest torture, his face twisted so horribly Reno couldn't remember what his face looked like normally until he woke up, sweating and heaving. Tseng's screaming was always joined by his own, be it during the dream or after.

It seemed so melodramatic in the light of the day, so fake, that Tseng would never, ever do that. He was a stoic, orderly man who sat at large desks of fine wood and gave detached orders and wore well-pressed suits. He did not make anymore noise than necessary, he did not stain his beautiful suits with the reddest, seeping blood. Reno tells himself over and over again that it is simply _not_ Tseng.

At night though, it is enough. And Reno hates that. 

This time, _this time_, Tseng does not scream. He does not make a noise. He does not even make a face resembling any sort of pain. The flames subside, and Tseng stands up, and blood gushes from nowhere on his body.

He stands still, but commands attention. He has always had it.

"Reno."

The heaviness of his voice slaps Reno in the face, knocks him over, unearths the greatest fears thought put to rest.

"Tseng."

He wants to cry, but that would be overkill. He has already cried once today.

"Stop killing yourself."

And with those words, he lifts a hand, and a blade comes to him.

The blade is not one he has ever seen before, but he knows in a second that it came from himself. He knows that the blade was pulled from his body, though he has no true reassurance of this fact. He just knows. And now Tseng has drawn it out of him. They knew, _know_, each other in a way that no one else does. It feels right.

"Go." 

The voice sounds almost teasing, melancholy, tired. It is molten lead, ruined silk. It is Tseng.

And he disappears. 

--------

Tifa awoke late that day.

She rolled around halfheartedly for several minutes (with lazy breaks in between of course) and made the occasional pained noise. She could practically _feel_ the light from the streetlamp outside sear itself into her eyelids. She needed betterBo blinds. Blondes. No, blinds was right.

Blondes? What made her think of that? Why in the world...?

She groaned and fought her way beneath the snug covers and pulled her pillow over her head to block out the annoyingly yellow rays. (And the vision of a particular blonde sleeping not 15 metres from her - that was the part that _really_ freaked her out.)

A muffled moan came next.

They had spent a large chunk of their time yesterday making idle conversation about the other members of AVALANCHE and about reconstruction in other places. They did not speak about Cloud's Wrong With Him or about Reno when she wanted desperately for both. She wanted to prove that they were as close as she thought. She wanted to feel that invisble tug, that line being etched around the two of them, drawing them closer together and keeping anyone else from understanding. It was selfish, but it was true and it was what she wanted. It was hard to figure out exactly what it was that she wanted, but she was certain that this was what it was. Tifa had always had a hard time knowing what she wanted. She thought that talking to him might make these wants more concrete, that his opinion would make her or break her.

And for the first time since she could remember, she realized that she wanted him as a friend.

"Teef?" 

"Mmmess?" she responded from between her mattress and pillow.

"Can I, um, come in?"

She had a brief shallow moment, worrying about her hair, wrinkled sleeping clothes, and general appearance. Tiredness beat it out. "Mress," she conceded while psyching herself up to face the yellowness of everything. She surfaced just as Cloud finished closing the door behind him.

He came to the side of her bed without hesitation, but his voice contradicted his actions. "Can I..." He made a gesture at her bed.

"What? Oh! Yes. Sit." She pulled herself up fully and rubbed her eyes while sheets gathered around her legs. "What's... up?"

His weight in the mattress bouyed her up a little. He cast a look over his shoulder at her, caught unexpectedly by the shift in the mattress. He liked that he could affect her, however small the way.

When no answer came, she decided to just sit. He'd answer eventually. She stared uselessly at the skin between the hem of his undershirt and the band of his boxers. In her grogginess she forgot to be embarassed.

He didn't feel her looking. He was too focused on how he'd tell her. He'd been up for an hour already, weeding out possible ways of telling her. The words fell out of his mouth faster than either of them noticed. "I don't love her."

Even on seven hours of sleep and seven minutes of recent consciousness, she knew immediately of who Cloud spoke. It was hard to believe. He didn't like talking about her.

He continued. "I never did. So why..." He turned to look at her bewildered face. "... do I feel like something's missing?"

She licked her lips slowly. "Well... it is. She _is_ missing. Wether or not you..." she couldn't finish. She spoke slowly, weighing each word before she said it. It has to be... _good_ enough for a martyr.

"No, it not. That. Her. I... it's..." he couldn't finish either. His gaze rested on Tifa's graceful hand. He flexed his arm absently, to feel his muscle tense around the red ribbon there. He hoped that she would understand, wherever she was now, that he was sorry.

Aerith.

He let out an involuntary half-chuckle. There was no humor in it. "What is wrong with me?"

She looked softly at him. The only readable thing about her was that she wasn't judging him. She had always been too kind-hearted for what she did, no matter if it was saving the Planet or simply listening to a friend.

She let him speak.

"_Why. Why_ don't I love her? Why didn't I? She was perfect. A saviour. A beauty. So many people described her that way. What was- is _wrong with me_? Am I heartless, Teef? Am I?" He was calm. The words could easily have been cutting, frantic, self-accusatory. He let out a shaky breath.

She listened still.

"More than that... I'm... stupid. Heartless to not love a saviour and stupid to not love a friend." He dared himself to turn to her, to look her in the eye, come what may.

When he fixed her with his mako eyes, she didn't know what to feel.

Tifa Lockheart was no fool. She knew there was no profession of love ahead. Cloud was no romantic. He had a hard time just talking to people. It was a miracle that he was speaking to her as openly as he was _about himself_ now. She knew him, she really did, and she knew he did not love her as anymore than a friend. Just being with him for under a day confirmed what she had known the whole time but tried to avoid. About him and her.

They guarded each other, almost jealously, against anyone else. They were protector and protectorate, roles interchangeable. Their reasons were different but the same.

Tifa was Cloud's. She was his ship and his harbor, the reason why he was the way he was. He _was_ her. She was the only part about himself that he loved because that was the part of him that had saved everything precious. To protect her was the natural, selfless act of self-preservation.

Cloud was Tifa's. He was so lost. To have seen him suffer the most crippling losses made her worried for him, made her hurt. She wanted him to never have to experience it again, and she could only be sure of this if she protected him. She loved him this way, selflessly and selfishly.

It would be easy if they fell in love, so easy to protect the other from hurt.

But it was not that way.

"I'm sorry for not loving you the right way," he told her, the strangest guilt welling up inside him.

She surprised them both when she threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek to his neck. "Same here."

And even though they knew the romantic kind of love had just died right then between them both in that embrace, they also knew that this more complicated love trumped it by far.

--------

That barrier between them had fallen down in the blink of an eye that morning. Tifa realized that out of all the kinds of love she felt for him, the one that remained was the best. It was a combination of the sisterly kind, the romantic kind, but the one that outweighed them both was the love of a friend. 

Cloud realized that he had had what he was missing all along, and all he needed was to make sure that it was shared. He realized that there were a million definitions of the word love. 'Guilt' was not included in any of them. If he had learned anything from the both of them, it was that as long as you put your whole heart and soul into what you do, you have no reason to feel guilty.

And with this myriad of things resolved, he could start focusing on that. 

"Want some eggs?" he asked companionably, one arm looped over her shoulders and the other conducting a pan and a large wooden spoon.

"Do you even have to ask? You know I like eggs," she smiled up at him, pink and bursting with happiness. 

"Just makin' sure... you _have_ changed a lot, you know," he said this as a maybe-joke, corner of his mouth quirked into a half smile.

She indulged her girly side in braiding some of her hair. "Oh yeah? How?"

He poked at the eggs and tossed some random herbs in, just because he felt a little looser this morning. Oh, what a way to unleash yourself. "Like I said before, in your bar." _Poke_. "You're happier. It's obvious. You _joked_ with me, Teef."

One lock of hair over another. "And I don't usually joke?"

"See! There it is again," he exclaimed mildly, holding back the urge to hit her amiably with the spoon. "You're being all... coy." 

She supressed a laugh at his usage of the word, but a half smile came to the surface regardless. "Really now?" 

"Again!" he proclaimed, and tossed more herbs into the pan, where they promptly began to sizzle. Was that supposed to happen? "I swear by it, Teef. You're _different_. Maybe you can't tell but I can."

Well here it was, the perfect opportunity. She gotten his Wrong With Him, and now she'd get her Reno too. She stopped her braiding.

"Mind sharing the reason why?" He switched off the heat and moved the pan to a different burner.

She stood a little uncertain in his loose embrace, not sure if this new relationship was ready for this news. It was perfect right now in this moment, and this might ruin it, so she'd tuck it away for another time, when they were stronger. This relationship was too new, too fragile to be stepped on. She'd tread lightly. "Could you... wait?"

"For?" he tipped his head to look at her quizzically. The light hit his eyes in such a way that made them seem even bluer than usual. She felt a ghost of a flutter in her stomach. They were beautiful.

"For the right time. Like we did with yours." She tipped her head also. "Please?"

He closed his eyes, so ethereal, and bowed his head like a true gentleman. "Of course." 

She was relieved that she had seemed to have done the right thing, and almost let out a sigh.

"Could you get some plates?" he asked.

When she did, he heaped the eggs on along with potatoes and bacon. They both loved large breakfasts, and barely spoke because of it. The silence they shared was a comfortable one though, less stilted and tense than they had been before.

Cloud left to find a place in the city where he could be put to good use, and as he stepped out the door, she slipped quick arms around him and gave a gentle squeeze. She loved the feeling of him squeezing back. 

With him gone for the day, she could think a little straighter.

Not that those thoughts would go straight anyway. 

She flopped on her couch with a world-weary sigh and tried to sleep again. Anything to not think about this anymore.

When her thoughts wouldn't leave her alone, she admitted defeat and let herself stop not thinking about them.

Renooooo. Reno. R-E-N-- 

Ugh. She imagined her face looked somewhere between questionable and nearly sick.

She couldn't help it though! She really couldn't. The thought of Reno _shouldn't_ have disgusted her... but then she shouldn't have been thinking of him in the first place.

Reno wasn't a disgusting person. He was downright non... disgusting... It was just that... that she had figured out why it was so hilarious to her that he could care about her.

She closed her eyes with a probable grimace.

It wasn't because he was heartless. It wasn't because of that _lean in-pause-push off_. It was both. It was both, along with the fact that she actually kind of _wanted_ him to care.

That was the hysterical part.

She checked her forehead for a fever. Nothing.

She _wanted_ him to care. That was the funniest part really. She wanted the affection of a man who was probably heartless enough to crack the neck of his own grandmother.

And here was the scary part.

She was almost certain he would give it.


	10. Girly Fraternizing

_Disclaimer: FFVII belongs to Squenix. So do all the characters appearing in this story, (except for maybe a few randoms). Good? Good. Glad we straightened that out._

Sakura-Angel: Oy vey. I'm very very sorry about how slow I'm churning this story out. I meant for this to become much longer, but it's been sitting on my computer for a frustrating amount of time, and I decided I might as well post it. They're both becoming increasingly aware of their, erm, attraction to each other (while displaying twin cases of denial). This chapter places special emphasis on that. After all the Cloud and Tifa stuff, I thought this might be welcome.

**Hidden Ache**

Okay, so he didn't exactly feel like the coolest person on the Planet at that moment. No big deal. 

He was just your average guy, out to buy some flowers.

... Okay, your average _assassin_ out to buy some flowers.

Yellow and red ones.

For his dead boss.

Right. Nothing... remotely unusual about that at all. People got bouquets for their dead employers(/fellow assassins) all the time, he'd bet.

... 

God, he felt dumb.

"I'm not sure- not sure you would l-like those, sir-er. They don't make too please- pleasing an arrange-ament," stuttered the extremely helpful and lispy florist. "Y-you won't impress a lay- lady with those."

He wanted to snap that he wasn't buying them for a lady, but that was just admitting all over again that he had lost more control of what he did and said lately. So he just tipped his head at her and gave her a tight smile. "Somehow I think she'll like 'em."

The old woman just about-faced and led him to the cash register. When he had paid and turned to push open the door though, she gave him the stink eye and mumbled, "Lousy man."

"I heard that," he called in a singsong voice just before the door shut, bell jangling. She was left with an open mouth and a stutter that would disappear for the rest of the day.

He stalked down the sidewalk, left hand strangling the stems of his stupidly bright flowers. He felt like a complete idiot like this. What had compelled him to do this? Since when did Reno ever _show_ that he cared about someone by actually going out of his way?

Must be that damn bit of sensitivity sprouting in his stomach. He thought he felt sick this morning.

He pushed open the weathered doors of the church and found it gratefully empty. The grip he had on the bouquet loosened as he tipped his head up to look at the ceiling. It looked close to caving in, in his opinion, but something about it still held strong. He felt a strange twist in his gut. He always felt a little wrong in holy places. He lowered his head again and walked the aisle. 

It was not the best way to honour a person, but it was the only way Reno could think of. There was no monument or anything he could do this at, and he figured this was the next best thing. The arrangement of flora was half-tossed half-laid-down at the very front of the church, flowers dead among flowers alive.

He produced a half-empty bottle of whiskey from his coat. He was tempted to speak outloud, explain to Tseng why he was doing this, say how much he wished the bastard was alive to drink this with him. But he didn't. He merely let his shoulders sag lower, and poured the liquid over the flowers and the floor.

A bit unorthodox, but Reno and Tseng weren't your average Joes anyway.

"I don't think that's allowed," a voice told him from the doors of the church.

Damn. Should've sensed them sooner. "I don't think I care," he replied, wishing that it had sounded more witty and less mournful. When the last of the whiskey had been drained onto the floor to seep between the already warped floorboards, he turned to the pair. 

"Don't know how happy they'd be about that," Tifa said to him, smiling, door no longer concealing her form.

"Who, oh love bucket o' mine?" he smirked a ghost of a smirk. He felt the mako flare behind his eyes at the sight of her.

"You know. Tseng. Aerith. This was _hers_, you know." She made a grand gesture, so unlike her, at the four humble walls and multitude of flowers.

The other visitor suddenly appeared from behind her at these words. He said nothing, merely looked at Reno with equal measures of distrust and indifference. He strode up the aisle, light from outside bursting through the stained glass windows and catching the bits of brighter blonde in his hair. His back was straight, but he was not proud or arrogant.

It suddenly struck Reno that Cloud was by any standards quite good-looking. Couple this with a heart big enough to save the Planet, and he was a superhero-heartthrob rolled into one. This realization would not have bothered him a month ago. In fact, he'd have laughed and joked, what good was that? But something had changed him.

The devil speaks. "Cat got your tongue?" She said good-naturedly, those red-brown eyes clapped down on his own as she walked by. He was seemingly stupefied, nailed to one spot on the floor by the smell of jasmine.

And since there was no jasmine growing in the church...

"No, as a matter of fact..." he stumbled for a comeback, scent wrapping itself around his head and settling into his memory forever.

"You expect me to believe that you were thinking about something?"

Since when had she become so... teasing? She sounded like... him.

Holdonaminute. That's not how this was supposed to work. _She_ was supposed to be _his_ prey. She was supposed to be the confused one, the one who sat with her mouth hanging open as he skipped circles around her. This was _his_ challenge, correct?

So... why did it seem the exact opposite? He needed to redeem the situation. Quickly. 

"You seem awfully perky today," he replied a touch too late, snarkiness back in his voice. He approached her and _him_ slowly, each footstep far too loud for a place supposedly solemn and silent.

"Yes, well," she craned her neck to look at him. "It's been a good couple of days."

And there it was again, that slight smile that said everything. It was the kind of smile that was the product of an exceptional experience. It couldn't help being there. It just _was_.

His gut told him it was something to do with the superhero. "Yeah?" He ran a hand through his hair, which he suddenly wished was freshly washed. He lied through his teeth, "Same here."

"Really? Well, I guess everyday of your life has been exciting, huh?" she said in a small talk voice. She was talking to him like she hardly knew him, and it bothered him.

"Well, there is a difference--"

"Teef, you done paying your respects yet?" Cloud placed a hand on her shoulder as easily as if they had known each other their whole lives. And then Reno realized that they did.

"Oh! Yeah, I really should..." she looked him straight in the eyes again and pointed to where Cloud had been standing earlier.

"Yeah, go ahead. Don't need to ask my permission," Reno laughed a little hollowly, stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned away from the pair. The moment his eyes left hers he felt more like himself.

She threw him off. Every damn time he thought of her now, or came into contact with her, he became some bumbling idiot, conscious of how dirty his nails were or how inadequate he was in comparison to her childhood crush, who suddenly seemed like some glowing god. Where he normally wouldn't have given a shit, he cared, maybe even obssessed over a little. He was nothing like himself.

He was in deep. What he was in, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that it was something different, tottering between the edge of unwelcome and needed. And it was all because of her. He saw Cloud through her eyes. He felt a small bit of something indescribable rise in his chest, beating its weak wings. A blend of resentment, awareness, and... want.

"See you, Reno," she bade him farewell, waving to him with her free hand. Her other hand was holding Cloud's. Together they exited. She looked like she was being pulled away from him, by Cloud, and Reno felt the stupidest alarm go off in his head, an urge to grab that other hand of hers, tug back. But he recoiled against himself, horrified that he could even think such a thought.

He was still standing in that same spot minutes later, with only Tseng and living and dying flowers and the smell of jasmine for company.

-------- 

"Well, that was obvious."

Tifa's eyebrows went up, surprised expression wasted completely on her blonde friend's back. She was unsure if he wanted a reply, but hazarded one anyway, "... What do you mean?"

"The Reno... thing," he said unsatisfyingly. Trust Cloud to be completely vague and still somehow perceptive.

She spoke slowly, as if either Cloud or herself were handicapped. "Reno. Thing. I'm afraid you're going to have to elaborate."

He stopped on the sidewalk (she stopped with him) and ran a hand through his hair, as if the action would help him explain. He really was no good with words. "I'd really like to not sound like a gossipy teenager." His face was so serious and concerned with this fact that she couldn't help but smile.

"Well, you're going to have to suck it up," she laid down the law, not unlike Reno did to her a few painting days ago. Then she realized that he really _had_ crept into her mannerisms and speech, and was a little freaked out that Cloud might somehow use this against her.

He looked a little tragic, 'oh do I really have to?' thinly veiled over his features. Clearly, the blonde saviour did not take to girly fraternizing particularly well. "Guys don't talk about other guys," he informed her, and dismissed that part of the conversation with a wave of a hand. He began walking, steps falling in time with hers.

She dropped his hand (she hadn't realized they were still holding hands), and pleaded with him, "Oh come on, Cloud." She followed him, feeling like a small yippy dog bouncing alongside a stoic bull. "You can't just _not_ explain something like that."

The blonde hero quickened the pace by half a step. He thought up a response, feeling boxed in, "... Yes I can." And promptly crossed the street.

"What was obvious? Hmm?" she asked once she caught up with him.

He looked ahead, maybe even made a point of doing so, and said with a straight face, "Him. But now I'm thinking you too."

She blinked pointedly and forced her legs to move. She gulped. It was bad enough that she thought of Reno and herself... as Reno _and_ herself, but now Cloud?

She tried to push this thought away. It was possible that Cloud didn't mean that he thought that she thought that she liked Reno, right? That was pure garbage. It was ludicr--

Wait. Did Cloud say "him"? As in Reno? As in, Reno thought of herself and himself as herself _and_ himself? As a... duet? A doublet? A coming together of two people kinda sorta thing? Cloud couldn't possibly think that. And most importantly, Reno couldn't possibly think that.

"Buh." 

"I see," said Cloud.


	11. The More Things Change

_Disclaimer: FFVII belongs to Squenix. So do all the characters appearing in this story, (except for maybe a few randoms). Good? Good. Glad we straightened that out._

Sakura-Angel: Cloud is freaking hard to write, Tifa comes to a slow realization, and Reno, surprisingly control freak-ish, finds out (and is okay with the fact?) that sometimes you can't control everything. Thanks for reading, lovelies. Your faith in me is astounding, heh.

**Hidden Ache**

That afternoon, Reno went home. He crashed shamelessly into bed, probably imprinting his face into the crap mattress (it really was crap, _really_) and maybe altering his bone structure.

After a torturous half hour of lying facedown in bed trying to not think about her, he fell asleep. 

And dreamed of her.

Gone were the fires from hell that accompanied Tseng. They were replaced by... the flowers from hell.

Jasmine.

The dream was choked with them. They overflowed, flooded the frames of the screen in his mind. He could've actually _swam_ in them, were they not in his ears, his mouth and down his pants.

Worst of all, he was helpless in the face of these flowers. They were just everywhere, and he could do nothing about it. He sometimes had the power to control how his dreams went, but no cigar with this one. Nope, no blowtorches or pairs of extra underwear in sight.

Upon waking, he swore he could smell them.

And laying there, he had to accept that he had traded in one set of problems for a whole other.

--------

"So you've moved back the opening day?"

"Yes," Tifa answered, apprehensive suddenly.

Cloud noticed this, but said nothing. "Do these go here?" he chose to ask instead, reffering to the bottles he was stacking in Tifa's new shelves.

She checked what he was holding. "No. Brandies go here." And she tapped a different shelf to her left.

He padded over to where she had directed him. "I think you really need more of this stuff," he said absently, peering at a bottle of blueberry. 

She raised an eyebrow. "Why...? Do you chug brandy now or something?"

"No. I think you're just underestimating your clientele. You're going to need more than just these few bottles."

"We'll see," she said, silently saying 'no, I won't'.

"You're better than you think," her blonde friend assured her. "People will come. You've already got a few sure customers."

Tifa did not miss his insinuation. "Haha, Strife. You know it's just because he likes to drink."

"Who? I was talking about myself," he replied, though not without mirth in his voice. 

"Yeah, Cloud the Drinker. I just can't see it. You sipping champagne, you chugging a beer..."

"Difficult?" 

"Well, I've seen you kill things like thirty times your size. It sort of... inhibits that. You're... solid." She surprised herself at answering so voluntarily.

"Ah." 

Silence.

"So, Reno."

"Cloud." 

He gave her a no-nonsense look, which was not difficult in the least. "I'm being serious, Teef. You have to... figure out what you've got with him."

"Why do you care so much? I thought you'd be the last person to stick his nose in matters of supposed romance," she said brashly, forgetting to be embarrassed.

"I am," he solidly replied, rotating a bottle so its label was visible, "But I am the first person to stick my nose in something concerning your well-being."

She felt bad immediately. All he was doing was looking out for her and she couldn't even be grateful. All she'd wanted from him a month ago was his attention, and now when she had it she dismissed it. "Sorry," was her meager apology. She was bad at this. After so many years of thinking of him a certain way, she had to adjust.

"It's fine," he said. A short reply, easily devoid of sensitivity, but with Cloud she could tell he meant it. He shifted, about to open his mouth, but then closed it.

"He's not your favourite guy, I know that," she said against her good sense, "Why are you pushing for this?"

He reached past her to pick up a bottle of high-end vodka. He knew his answer, but chose to slow down a bit. After a suitable amount of time had passed, he gave her his opinion. "Because he makes you happy."

She looked up at him from behind her bangs. She had no way to refute that. 

They went on stacking, Cloud asking the odd question about what something was or where it went, but other than that, they remained in silence. She felt oddly discomforted and comforted at the same time by this - silence meant no more talk of Reno, but at the same time she wanted to talk about it, him, them.

"Need any help?"

She turned to see him standing in the door, leaning against the frame of it like some guy in a movie. Her lips were parted to reply, shiny for some reason. Was she wearing lip gloss? Somehow, the wetness of them made him stare.

"Well, now that you're here I can't say no," she told him as he strode toward her and superhero.

"Good," he said, sounding defiant. "Cloud," he tipped his head in the blonde's direction. Cloud nodded back.

Tifa came out from behind the counter. She sensed that things were about to get awkward. "Um, Reno, could you run out and get some paint remover for me?" 

"Shafting me already, I see," he smiled at her lopsidedly. On the outside he smiled, but inside he felt that jealous tingle where spine met skull. Why him? Why not Cloud? Well, he didn't really need an answer to that question.

"I am not," she said, placing a hand on her hip. She furrowed her brow at his remark. "I need paint remover. It's not a useless errand." 

"Did I say it was?" he replied, tipping his head at her again. "Really, Lockheart. Way to put words in my mouth." 

"You insinuated--"

"Yeahyeahyeah, Teef. Let's blow past that. Paint remover. I'm on it."

She looked surprised. "Thanks, Reno."

"Yeah, whatever," he saluted with his back to her - with his left hand, of course - and stepped out onto the street.

He didn't do too badly. He thought that maybe his brain would betray him again, make his shoulders lock at her voice or make his voice catch in his throat. But no such thing happened. Well, there was that lips thing...

Still, that didn't fix his problem. He had to finish this damn challenge. He _never_ left stuff like this done halfway! Especially when it was a self-imposed challenge. He didn't _do_ awkward entanglement. He didn't _do_ pausing and thinking about where this was going. He wasn't that kind of a guy. 

But dammit all, she was making him one! How did she have this kind of power? He'd blame it on magics or hypnosis, but he didn't fall for lame-o stuff like that.

So what _did_ he fall for? (That was easy: a pretty face streaked in paint, a killer stir-fry, a tinkly laugh, the smell of jasmine...)

Oh, **_hell_**. 

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying to erase the pout he knew was emerging on his face. He hadn't pouted since about the fifth grade. A scowl rose to the surface instead.

He walked robotically through the hardware store, picking up the second most expensive paint remover (it was practically scentless, or so said the label). He thought of her hatred of the scent unconsciously as he picked it up. He paid still with the scowl on his face, which no doubt frightened the young cashier who said the courtesy 'have a nice day' as meekly as possible.

The walk back was quicker with less to think about.

"Hey! Back so soon?" she greeted him once his walked through the door. She walked up to him, bottle of a clear something in her hand.

"Yeah," he answered, still feeling like he was on auto-pilot. Superhero was nowhere in sight. "Where's blondie?"

"Cloud's in the back," she told him, grabbing the bag from the hardware store from his hands. Something about this action made him happier, like she was less distant. The feeling reeled him back into the bar with her.

"Hey! It says it has no smell!" she exclaimed happily, more cheery than most at the sight of flammable chemicals.

Cloud appeared from the back room, the room Reno himself had lay in, thinking of Tseng. Cloud was watching them, but not cautiously.

"You remembered?" she asked him, face unreadable.

He felt like he was in high school, talking to the pretty girl while other guys stood off to the side. He felt stupid for feeling proud. "Remembered what?" He looked down at her, eyebrow raised, mouth tweaked into a casual kinda-sorta grin. He didn't know that that look made her smile.

They were standing about half a foot away from each other, side by side. She tilted her head fondly to the side. "That I hate the smell of this."

He looked up from the can in her hands, eyes unblinking. He _did_ remember. He picked up something for her with her quirks in mind, and he wasn't even _aware_ of it while he did it.

Oh, **_hell_**.

He was turning into some kind of wuss. He was putting genuine thought into this? He was like some... domestic, boyfriendy, caring...

"I see," she said mysteriously, and turned quickly away with the remover in one hand, the vodka in the other. He saw her shoot Cloud a sideways glance.

"I didn't!" he said too loudly. He twisted his torso more to watch her go. "What are you talking about?" he added for effect, but really just made it more obvious.

Superhero-heartthrob raised both eyebrows at the exchange. Damn him. He probably knew exactly what they were talking about.

"Nothing," she answered, turning quickly back to face Cloud.

He held back the urge to growl. Again! Just when he thought he had the reins again, they were snatched away. This was stupid. He was supposed to be in control. He always was. She proved him wrong time and time again. And she wasn't even _trying_. He couldn't control her, or himself, or even the kind of fucking paint remover he bought...

And of course, stupid Spike over there just had to be here to see the whole thing. He wasn't trying either. Cloud upstaged him without effort, called Tifa back without so much as lifting a finger.

She was _his_! She was part of _his challenge_. He was supposed to win her over, and instead of calculating the exact method by which he would win her over (the usual), he was standing around like an idiot (the unusual, but somehow vaguely familiar).

Fuck. Did he just get possessive? No. He never got possessive. Ever. Possessiveness was for jealous, out-of-control losers who made their world revolve around... frick. He buried his face in his palm.

"Wanna help?" she asked from across the room. A smile was on her face, the non-stinky paint remover can open.

He expected to snap at her in his rotten mood, but something softened him. He could resist this change, hang onto his crap mood and storm out, or he could go with it. He didn't know if he could. He didn't like this niceness or this caring about what happened to her. He couldn't deviate from his usual behaviour before-

And look where it got him. Feeling possessive over something not his (but frick, she wa-), angry over lack of control. He went against his fighter's instinct, plunged himself into something he sensed was more dangerous. "Yeah." He took that leap, stepped out of his comfort zone.

She smiled, dimpling a cheek.

He breathed out, unclenched his jaw, and held out a hand for a brush albeit a little reluctantly. Kneeling down beside her, he grudgingly decided that maybe leaps weren't that bad after all.


	12. D is for Detour

_Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven is not mine. It is, in fact, Square's. It's arguably their best moneymaker._

Sakura-Angel: So hey, Tifa's lightening up! Hints have been shown before, but with a lot of backtracking. But who knows, maybe it'll stick this time? And what's going on with that awkward Cloud-Tifa-Reno thing? Does anyone even see it like that other than Reno? And who will mess up the dynamic this chapter around? Answers may astound, but probably not. (In other news, Cloud is freaking hard to write again!)

**Hidden Ache**

He never thought he'd see the day that he could find himself liking Cloud Strife.

And he didn't think he ever would.

"She's wearing a pink ribbon in her hair all the time now, and she sometimes threw punches at me. She begged Barrett for a pair of gloves," the blonde laughed (Reno looked saucy with surprise - he hadn't known the blonde was capable of laughing).

Tifa listened raptly, a mix of sadness at the reminder of Aerith and surprise at the imitation of herself showing plainly on her face. He didn't understand why she looked so surprised - was idolizing a Saviour of the Planet such a ludicrous idea? She really was far too modest.

Cloud told some story abut the Marlene girl wearing a miniskirt and her dad freaking out. Tifa groaned and laughed at different intervals. Her laugh was all tinkly, and it was driving him nuts. He couldn't concentrate on removing paint with that laugh. (He imagined that if it had a form, it would flutter and tilt wildly in control, leaving trails wherever it went.)

He thought _he_ was the only one who could make her laugh so tinkly and pretty like that. Stupid Cloud. Stupid uncontrollable jealousy. Stupid Cloud some more.

"Hey Reno, do you really expect me to believe you've got that much work ethic?" her happy voice teased.

Twistedly, he wished for her mood from when he'd found her again - snappy, tense, bogged down with sadness and disappointment. Anything other than this. Back then, he knew what he was doing. There was no Cloud, no turn around Tifa. 

Then he remembered her face - sharp, each line in her young face angled for the ground - and felt guilty. She didn't deserve that.

"You want for me to stop?" he drawled at her, giving off every impression of being laidback and not bothered at all by her and Cloud.

"Well, it is getting late," she stated, letting him finish this statement off in his head. It was, in fact, only six thirty.

He stood up and moved to another spot on the floor. (Tifa dragged herself around on her butt - something he would not in a million years ever try.) He went on removing paint, giving her his answer.

"Oh-kay." Her eyes slanted at Cloud, wondering what to make of this strange behaviour. Little did she know, she would not be getting any backup.

She couldn't help but feel the tiniest bit alarmed when Cloud announced, "I'm gonna go. Keys, Teef?"

Her eyes widened at him, and he raised his eyebrows back at her. Funny how they could speak without speaking.

She pulled him farther away from Reno, but closer to where she kept her keys, so this would not seem altogether conspiratory.

She hissed, losing a bit of her composure as she did so, "You're leaving me?" The anger in her tone was upstaged by the worried crumple of her brow.

"With Reno, yes."

She chose to ignore this. Cloud thought he was just oh _so_ clever. "_Why?_"

She had never thought her friend was capable of looking affronted, but here he was, looking somewhere between insulted for himself and insulted for her. "So... you can talk...?" he replied, a little afraid she was going to go berserk on him.

"Why would you need to go for us to do that? We just spoke, with you sitting five feet away." She nodded, as if to convince him to stay. No such luck.

"He's not comfortable with me here. You know that. Besides, I'm tired," he said in a way that made it clear to her that he was not tired, and was really just doing this to spite her. He held out his palm. "Keys?"

She considered not giving them to him, but that seemed terribly immature. She took her sweet time getting them instead.

"Thanks, Teef." He took them from her palm, squeezing her fingers lightly. "See you, and don't freak out too much." He turned to leave, the rubber of his shoes squeaking in the first steps.

"What was that supposed to mean? You're not getting any pancakes tomorrow, Cloud Strife!" she half-yelled at him, the distress in her voice completely obvious. To her, at least.

"Bye, Tifa," he said, stepping outside and letting the door fall shut.

She breathed out heavily. How was it possible to feel this tired and defeated after doing basically nothing? She steeled herself, and cracked three knuckles of each hand, just like she used to do before a fight.

"That's gross." The stray comment seemed to come out of nowhere.

She knew exactly where it came from though. It could logically have come from only one place.

"Isn't that a bit of the pot calling the kettle black? You do it too." She walked over to the redhead, mild annoyance evident. So maybe she was taking her anger out on Reno when she really should have been taking it out on Cloud. Whatever.

"Well yeah," he said, swiping at the floor, "But you just cracked like, all your fingers at the same time. _That's_ sick."

Her annoyance deepened. She was smiling without knowing it though, an honest smile.

"How did you know I did that anyway?" 

"You always did it while painting," she told him, and it struck her how many days they must have spent together for her to know this without even realizing she knew.

"Bet you I can do something grosser." He grinned up at her. He put the paintbrush in the can, letting it sink.

"I don't think my knuckle cracking is gross," she defended herself. Reno had given her no time to get used to this new arrangement - just the two of them, formerly three, and she felt just a little off kilter. Like maybe she had stepped in gum and the sticky crap was making her gait awkward.

"Whatever." He stood straighter, his ever-present slouch disappearing. Then he rotated his torso swiftly to the right and left. _Crack crack crack_.

"Oh, that _is_ gross." Her nose had wrinkled and her mouth seemed to pull back in her face. Not her sexiest expression.

He grinned. "That's what everyone tells me." He ran his knuckles alongside his spine. "Sure feels nice."

Tifa said nothing to this, merely seemed to resign herself to spending time with a spine-cracker.

--------

After Strife (the last name seemed like a screaming reminder of what the blonde instilled in Reno) left, he decided to make Tifa forget about him. They were getting back to their own thing, just the two of them. Another gameplan, another step closer to getting this challenge back on track.

Even though he didn't really feel like reaching out, felt like letting his (freaking stupid) jealousy churn and spoil inside of him, he decided he didn't like the rotten connotation this churning and spoiling brought.

About ten seconds into their exchange though, it didn't feel fake on his end anymore. While explaining why exactly the finger-cracking was gross and seeing _that look_ appear on her face, he couldn't help but smile for real. 

"Hey," he said now, still kneading the muscle in his back, "Maybe you should work on your own floor."

She stuck her tongue out at him, and he raised his eyebrows at this. Then again, she was acting a lot less upset lately, getting playful. It was sort of weird. No doubt the work of blondie.

Her fingers gripped a brush. Her reluctance was so evident he could read it in the loose way she held the instrument.

"I don't want to," she said, an air of defeat in each word. She laid down on the floor, covering her extremely nice hair in a thin layer of grime. 

"Eh," he said in reply. He sat next to her, leaning sloppily against a wall. "If you're not doing anything, hell if I'm gonna do something."

She looked up at him, still feeling uneasy, but smiling. "You don't have to follow my example. By all means..."

"Yeah. Right." Those eyebrows went up again, mouth carefully neutral. He let himself smile though, when she laughed.

A comfortable silence settled between them then, fluttering down from the ceiling and taking its place on the floor with them. Until Reno spoke.

"I've got the sharpest eyes in the world." A ghost of a smirk made its way to his face, just like before. He swung said eyes towards her, hoping she'd catch on.

She did. "I wish I could see a bird in this city."

"I really hate sandals." 

"I really don't."

He sighed, casually cushioning his head with both his palms, fingers entwined. "I feel better about Tseng." Why he said this, he couldn't really guess. Other than the fact that she was the only one outside of the Turks who knew remotely about how he felt about that particular subject.

Her eyes warmed, and she sat up. "I'm glad you told me that."

He shrugged, a 'nahh, whatever' perched on his lips. But all it took was a glance her way to realize that she meant it. So he changed his words for her. "Yeah."

She tipped her head at him, noticing this shift. She felt better. A lot better, actually. She was about to say something to convey this, but was cut off by Reno.

"Want to see something?" 

"It's not more spine cracking, is it?"

"No," he replied immediately. "Come on." And he stood up, not bothering to dust off the seat of his pants. He held out a hand to her, feeling like the most natural of movements.

She took his hand, not missing the strange politeness of the gesture. "Thanks." 

Another 'nah, whatever' turned "Yeah."

She felt her stomach flip and flop as he led her out of her bar and down the street. This felt eerie. Reno was taking her somewhere. She could trust him now, so she could be certain it wasn't a dark alley or anything, but she couldn't loosen that knot of apprehension tightening itself somewhere near her intestines.

They were nearly running down the sidewalk now, her just beside and behind him. She felt the eyes of other pedestrians. 'We're not like that,' she wanted to say, if only to prove it to herself. (Mostly to prove it to herself.)

"Getting outta shape, Lockheart?" he asked her now, his ponytail whipping over his shoulder.

Her competitive spirit rustled awake after a long hibernation. "You wish," she said, and promptly picked up her pace to pull alongside him.

"Oh, I see how it is." He ran faster to return them to their former layout. Something resembling excitement came back to him. "But I'm one step ahead. Literally and figuratively."

"And how would that be?" she asked, playing along.

"_I_ know where we're going. You don't."

"I see."

He frowned inwardly, sad that their banter ended so quickly. Ah, well... when they got there, he'd just turn up the charm again, and she'd be-- 

Suddenly, Tifa rocketed past him and off the sidewalk. 

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing? You don't know where we're going!"

"That's not going to stop me!" she called over her shoulder, delight playing over her features.

What the hell? "Lockheart, you're a nutcase!" he told her. He hesitated for a split second, then ran off the sidewalk after her.

--------

Tifa knew she was fast. She could've accelerated to a point where Reno couldn't catch her. But she wasn't looking to be uncaught.

The sudden burst of spontaneity she displayed in running off was just one case among many others since the afternoon she burst out laughing at Reno's caring about her. That time she was alarmed. This time, it didn't feel so bad. (It might've also been that competitive thing.)

She was getting to like this change. And in this moment, she might've liked it even more that he was the one inciting it.

A hand clamped over her wrist. "Gotcha."

She went on running, giving this about as much attention as she did, say, the whirring of her hairdryer. Which is to say, not very much.

"You're supposed to slow down, realizing that you've been caught," he told her, no doubt running very awkwardly considering he was almost entirely behind her.

"Eh," she said by way of reply, tossing her hair. The action produced a wave down the length of her tresses, whipping Reno in the face.

"Did you just hair-whip me?" he asked, just outraged and flirtacious enough. 

"Yes," she said with finality. Now she slowed down, coming to a complete stop. Somewhere in the middle of it all, he let go of her wrist.

"You know, I almost don't want to show you that awesome thing anymore."

She cocked her head to one side. "I'm heartbroken."

And there she was again, that snappy side of Tifa Lockheart, only this time she was tempered by some playful sarcasm, maybe even a half smirk. She looked _good_ when she smirked, and it was strange because that look on her face was not her at all, but it was also entirely her.

He cleared his throat. "Right. Well." He floundered. "Let's go." And he grabbed her wrist again, only this time, he was in the lead, and pulled them back the way they came. She fought back with protests and what he believed were uncharacteristic threats to yank his ponytail.

He walked on, half-ignoring her half-hearted protests. He lifted a hand to shield his face in the rays of the dying sun and got his bearings. Now his footing was sure in a literal sense, but as was the norm as of late, he could never be sure about the figurative.


	13. Separate Sea and Sky

_Disclaimer: FFVII isn't mine. While you're at it, no infringement was intended by the naming of those peaches. Sorry, Nintendo._

Author natterings: Forgive me? (Facepalm.) I started writing, I really did, and then I decided I liked being a hussy better. I hope you can find it somewhere in you to forgive me and my slackerness.  
There's a pretty-much-two-month gap between my writing for this chapter, so if you sense some stickiness with flow, tell me? The last part of the chapter was _extremely_ difficult to write - Cloud was being out of character. I only hope I cleaned that up sufficiently. There's tons of transitioning this chapter around, which is another possible reason for why this chapter was so difficult to write. Your feedback would help a ton (presuming people still actually read this story, ha ha). (Also, you don't know what I'm talking about yet, but the scene with the mob was an indulgence on my part. Sorry if it seems pointless. Let's call it war-bonding.)

**Hidden Ache**

"Here we are, oh love bucket," the former Turk announced after numerous twists and turns down foreboding alleyways.

"You dragged me out of my bar to show me three dumpsters and a guy with a paunch sunning himself."

Reno took great pains to roll his eyes at her. "No, you batshit AVALANCHE-ee. _Up_." At this he pointed to a set of ladders leading up the side of a building, not even bothering to hide his annoyance.

"Oh," she said. She walked to one. He followed suit.

"Ladies first," he grinned at her, somewhere between courteous and just plain goofy.

She looked at him with skepticism. "And this would have nothing to do with the fact that you could stare at..." - she couldn't say _my butt_ in front of him - "... me. While I go up."

He grinned wider, so wide that she'd have sworn she could see his molars if he went just a _tiny_ but further. "What, and allow you the pleasure of staring at _my_ ass?" His eyebrows wiggled.

A red tint promptly appeared on her cheeks, but she refused to acknowledge it in any way. Instead, she took the exasperated route. "Reno..."

"Alright, you talked me into it." He held both hands up, palms facing her, waving. His expression was smug. "Just don't look _too_ much." And he winked.

She pursed her lips just a tad, wanting to bite back but void of anything clever enough. After he'd climbed about ten rungs, she hoisted herself up as well. If she looked up, she could see the pale skin of his back (he didn't bother tucking in his loose shirt) and okay, she also saw his butt. Which was sort of why she looked up as little as possible. Which was why she didn't notice Reno dismount, and was expecting smooth metal to curl her fingers around instead of--

"Ouch," she winced, and turned her palm up. Scraped skin peeled a bit at the tender middle sections of three fingers. The same three she cracked in succession awhile ago. Hm... she was getting soft, not doing martial arts much anymore...

Reno came over to the top of the ladder, thumbs in the pockets of his pants. "What?" he said, staring down at her. Her hair fell all around her and neck and shoulders and it was all very nice. He should, he thought sarcastically to himself, become a poet.

She went on examining her hand, then held it up wordlessly.

He glanced at it without a flicker, then grabbed it roughly, tugging at her arm. "Can't be that bad." And he pulled her up to the rooftop.

Caught in his grip without warning, she yielded to his helping her up. She was even more surprised though, when he turned her hand over in his own.

"Aw come on, Lockheart," he gave an exaggerated groan. "You've taken worse shit."

"I know, that's why I'm a little sad," she told him, not knowing why she did so. She blinked at her hand, noticed they both were.

"That it hurts more than you expected?"

She looked up now, and was surprised to see him staring her straight in the eye. Damn Turk training. Again, she thought, bittersweet, he'd read her again.

She let herself think back on a time when she wasn't so alone. When she had Barrett and Marlene and AVALANCHE and a cause. Her punches weren't so soft, her skin was thicker. Her world was full of possibilities then - change right around the corner, be it good or bad. And always, in the secret part of her mind - the endless potential that came with the little blonde boy from her hometown. She loved what they had now, but there might always be an ache that begged the childish part of her to reconsider. Time would allow the new relationship to grow and fill the space the old one left, and she knew that _that_ would be wonderful.

This new whatever-it-was she had with him would help, she realized. Cloud would help her feel better about the past.

She swallowed nothing, and registered Reno still holding her hand.

If that was what Cloud was, what was Reno?

She almost choked at what her brain conjured at this question.

_Worth it._

Her eyes went instantly in and out of focus. She wasn't even aware of her swaying until a strong grip closed around her bicep.

"Whoa, Teef. You alright?"

Her instincts commanded her eyes into focusing. When they focused, the first thing she saw were Cloud's eyes.

The second (the _actual_, her brain remarked snidely,) thing she saw were Reno's. They were greener. Pumped to the brim with Lifestream. And just as, if not more, ethereal.

She shook her head. No, she'd have to stop comparing them. Especially if she wanted to consider Reno a romant--

Waitasecond. What was she thinking just now?

"No? You're not alright?" came his voice, more puzzled than anything else. His eyes were moving slowly over her face, searching, but remaining impenatrable themselves. His irises were bright blue right in the centre, bleeding immediately into green. At any other time it would be impossible to see a deeper ocean in those eyes, but he was _awfully_ close...

Nooo. Ahh. Bad Tifa.

"I-I'm fine," she said softly.

He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he flooded her. He put his hands in his pockets, relaxed and deliberate. "Oh yeah? You're sure?"

She tried to live in the present and think of the future. "I'm... actually not sure yet."

She couldn't stop noticing his eyes. They seemed to spark with approval at her answer. She made herself focus on something else. Maybe... that. Just off his left shoulder...

"Princess Peaches. Product of Costa Del Sol," she read aloud from the billboard without realizing it.

He piqued his eyebrows, then turned around. "Oh yeah. Almost forgot why we're here." He lifted an arm and made an elaborate gesture, showcase style. "Ta-dah."

Her dazed state began to ebb away. Still, she let out a "Huh?"

He lifted an eyebrow, choosing to stay charming. "This would be it, love bucket."

"A billboard?" her voice came out a tad squeaky, and he snickered at this.

"Yeah. Cool, huh?"

She took a long look at it, just to make sure she wasn't missing anything heart-stopping. A giant peach with its stem and a leaf attached was smack dab in the middle. Alternating bars of a yellowy-orange and golden yellow streamed out from behind the fruit in imitation of the sun. The tagline she read was in bold letters, letters fat and slighty swirly. It was what Yuffie would have proclaimed 'retro-cheesy'.

"Um."

"Though I never saw a single peach in Costa when I was there," he continued, as if they were speaking companionably on the subject. "Maybe they're lying. Whadda you think?"

"This is your cool thing?" she finally managed.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye, seeming pretty critical for a guy so impressed with a fruit billboard. "Yeah. What, not _cool_ enough for you?"

"I just thought. I thought that it might be something more exciting."

Now he looked really critical. "More exciting?"

She felt really stupid. First, that soul-peeking-out moment, the trance-like lock-gazes thing, and now he was acting like _she_ was a complete idiot for not liking some dumb advertisement. She spoke out of the need to cover herself up and burn him at the same time. "I just thought that since you were a guy, you'd take me to something blown up or something." _'Something blown up or something. Good one, Tifa.'_

"That's everywhere though. Where else can you find another sun?" At this, he tipped his head fondly at the giant peach. Not too typical Reno.

She wondered if he was maybe running a fever. "It's not another sun."

"Sure it is," he beamed at the ad again, then turned back to her. "It's bright, it's yellow, it's sunny-_looking_. It's happy. You know."

"And since when were you a fan of sunshine?"

"Since always. Don't let the pale skin fool ya. I just don't tan." He wagged his finger.

She shook this off, dismissed it with a wave of a hand. For some reason, she decided on prying this out of him. "I meant... you don't seem the jolly type."

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "I'm jolly? I never said I was jolly."

Her mission made her stutter. "I-I know. You just don't seem like the type to appreciate something so simple and happy as a... as a fruit billboard."

The lines of his face softened and hardened - the eyebrow raise slipped, but the small frown made itself known. "Well... your tastes kind of lose complexity after your hometown gets decimated."

"Reno..." _Please, no armour,_ she asked him silently.

He could read it in her face, she wanted something serious. So he took his guards off, slowly. "You know what I'm talking about. The newness of everything... that smell of concrete everywhere. The way everything's so clouded over from dust still. There's still layers in this city, Teef. Just now, it's old stuff, new stuff, people, clouds." His hand hit the air, punctuating each layer, built up for her to see.

"Clouds," she repeated. She thought of the truth in this.

He spun around. "Clouds," he affirmed, nodded his head.

"A haze of dust, is that it? That makes it hard to see."

"A haze," he looked up at the billboard and said matter-of-factly, "Of what _was_." He swallowed nothing, Adam's apple lurching. His stretched neck showed off the tendons and slender bones that made up his neck and shoulders, and arched against that gray sky, he looked like simple poetry.

"That makes it hard to see?"

Nothing. For awhile. He broke his unintended graceful pose to go to her. She could barely comprehend his movements, least of all when his arms found their way around her.

"Yeah," he spoke into her hair, and she felt sympathy rise in every bone in her body at his tone. "It does."

So that was what they did. Reno and Tifa, tolerable acquaintances, stood against a dying sun and a paper one, and not-embraced until the wind blew in the night.

--------

The truth could be a beautiful, freeing thing. The truth could also be an ugly abberation. Or some mixture of the two. Whichever it was, Reno usually found it unwelcome.

"You have to stop it, while you have time."

Unless maybe having Tifa pressed up to him came somewhere afterwards. (Never mind that he was the one who started it.)

"Yeah, well, I'm not."

Rude presented this ugly-beautiful mix to him the noon after that night, the night he did not work and did end up bonding in a very strange way with the ex-AVALANCHE-ee.

"Why are you doing this with her anyway?" His long-time confidante asked, not sounding too inquisitive, more just on the verge of empty frustration.

"'Cause she's hot," he shrugged, giving the classic guy response. When nothing came from Rude, he pressd a little further, "And it's a challenge. That's the whole point, Rude."

"It's going to backfire, Reno."

"Who says?" He gave his friend the stink-eye. "You're just saying this 'cause you still got the hots for her."

Rude flinched, but only marginally to his credit. "That doesn't matter. You're the one who needs to be worried about being flooded with guilt."

"Bah!" he snapped, his imitation of Scrooge probably unintentional. "I've done this before, if you need reminding, and guilt's never been a problem before."

"You never spent this much time with..." Rude halted, uncertain about what to term Reno's 'Challenges', "... a girl before."

"Time's a factor, yeah," he conceded, then leaned back in his chair, teetering on the back legs. "But I'm not about to get myself attached," he lied (badly) through his teeth, and had the feeling he got before someone was about to call his bluff.

Rude only flipped idly through the phonebook for a phone number he didn't need. He knew when to let Reno sabotage himself, and this was really a golden opportunity. It was funny, because Reno didn't slip up this much, ever. Especially not with a girl. Even if he did a little, he'd hide it (in vain of course, because Rude could read him in a blink of an eye). But hey, Rude had a sense for these things...

_Flip. Lick, flip._ Two minutes and twelve seconds of silence. Then...

"It's her!" he half-yelled, though not less indignant than if he were to yell full-out. "I swear, she's some fucking hypnosis... something!"

Rude looked up.

"She slips drugs into her stirfry! She... she... her paint! The fumes conk you out!" His arms were waving, and he was overdue for a haircut, too-long spikes waving with his actions and lending him an almost mad scientist-like air.

Rude blinked, slowly.

"Her niceness is contagious! Her perfume makes you fall head-over-heels--"

Rude raised his eyebrows.

And just then, Reno caught himself, stumbled back from the edge of something he did not even realize he thought-felt. He caught sight of his friend, those eyebrows visible over the rim of his dark glasses, and snapped, "What?"

Eyebrows still up, Rude opened his mouth and said, simply, "Oh, nothing."

Were it possible, the air around Reno would have darkened. Rude had known he'd react that way, hadn't he? The bastard...

"Pepperoni?" Rude inquired as innocently as possible for a six foot tall ex-assassin.

Reno turned on his rump away from Rude's direction and muttered, a growing scowl on his lips, "_Fuck._"

Rude dialed.

A quaking delivery guy and a slice of pizza later, Rude revived the truth. "You're asking for a beating. In more ways than one."

Reno power-scowled and plucked about three slices of pepperoni off of the top of the pizza, then popped them into his mouth savagely.

"You're growing a conscience. It'll suffer." Rude could really talk when he wanted to, and Reno was finding it extremely annoying at the moment.

"I don't care," he replied defiantly, knowing he really _wouldn't_ care.

"If she finds out, you're going to get your ass kicked."

"Yeah, right," he said with skepticism, mashing pepperoni. Tifa was good, but she couldn't be _that_ good. Besides, he doubted she'd find out about his self-imposed challenge in the first place. Rude was just so _paranoid_.

"When it's over, or when she finds out..." Rude looked him right in the eye, and Reno could feel it through the lenses, sobering him up. "... She might cry."

And _that_ struck Reno over the head more than he cared to admit.

--------

"A peach?" the blonde said with incredulity, the word feeling foreign on his tongue.

"Yes, a peach," his companion said, her grip loosening slightly.

"What--"

"Is so special about a peach? I have no idea." A smile was now evident on her pretty face.

"You've picked a weird one, that's all I'll say," he said to her, leaning close so she could hear over the din. But before she could get in a word--

"Strife!" called the hostess.

"Ah, that's us. Come on," he focused on the auburn ponytail leading them to their table, while simultaneously managing to not yank Tifa over the polished floor. Doing so would be disastrous, seeing as stiletto heels did not have much traction. Were they even stiletto? How many kinds of heels could there be? All he knew was that the ones _he_ wore were some gross purple.

Oh, the old days. Dear Shiva.

All at once, Cloud found his foot underneath one undetermined type of heel, himself ambushed by at least three over-hairsprayed teenaged girls, and Tifa nowhere in sight.

"OhmyGODit'sHIM!" two shrieked in unison, clawing at his hair. What in the world...?

He looked past many crunchy curls for his date, and found her similarly trapped by three had-to-be-fifteen-year-olds.

He unwedged his foot from underneath one of their shoes. "Excuse me," he said, striving to keep his tone as normal as possible.

"OhmyGodhisvoice is SO SEXY!" they trilled, and he fought back a wince. He never had this trouble before...

"Cloud!" Tifa hissed at him and his mob, obviously at her limits of patience and politeness. Luckily for her, boys that _freaking young_ were still awkward around girls. (Or in Tifa's case, _women_. Cloud had to hold back a grimace.)

"Coming," he said, and resisted elbowing whichever one of the girls was trying to hold him back by clutching his tie. "Excuse me," he dislodged her fingers with as gentle and formal a touch he could muster.

"He held my hand! Heheldmyhand!" one of them exclaimed.

"Right. Excuse me..." he said, and it felt like a plea. Please don't trample me, please don't pluck my hair or something equally creepy. He made the five strides to Tifa and her posse. He took her arm and spirited her away, leading her a little more quickly than necessary. He didn't want to look back, lest either fanatical group mistook the action for something to squeal over. Again.

By now, two waiters had arrived to suggest that all the teenaged maniacs return to their tables and not disturb other customers, too late to stop any of the real pain.

The thing was, Cloud hated squeaky.

Once they found refuge at their own table and their waiter had left them with menus, Cloud breathed a sigh of relief. "That was scary."

Tifa laughed, though a little shakily, clearly also shook up. "You've faced scarier battles than that..."

"No I haven't."

She laughed more, and hearing it seemed worth the horribly crushed hair.

She also noticed this fact. "Your hair..." and she reached across the table, fingers almost to the blonde spikes, when she stopped.

"What?" he blurted, smiling mildly through his fading fangirl terror.

"Doesn't this seem like something a girlfriend would do?" she asked, her fingers curling back into her palm.

He let out a breath, looked up at her through his eyelashes and said to her sincerely, "You should stop worrying about that."

Her reply was rushed, maybe a little flustered. "I'm sorry! But... it's hard. I don't want to make this weird."

"Isn't it already?" His eyes smiled.

She looked at those eyes of his, _really_ looked at them, _saw_ them, and knew it was true. He had this unique talent, the ability to make the blue of his eyes even brighter, and proto-laugh lines would follow, crinkling at the corners, all without shifting the rest of his face. It was partly why she loved them so much.

They had one of the... strangest relationships she could have ever imagined. But it had to work. It was working, and it would continue. She was just feeling rattled.

"Hm. Yeah." She attempted a smile, to help dispel the strange feeling. She then picked her chair up with her, and edged over to Cloud's side of the table. He bowed his head so she could have an easier time, and she ran her fingers through his hair, combing and twisting.

"Hey, Cloud?" She contemplated a blonde spike, streaked through with some facet of orange-red.

"Mm?"

"Could I ask you something?"

"Sure," he said, and his tie moved with his chin.

"Do you think..." She appeared to focus on his kinda-sorta-bangs, and said, "That I could do this with... with Reno?"

Cloud furrowed his brow, though not out of jealousy or reluctance to answer. "Do you mean... act like this?"

She nodded her head, then realized he probably couldn't see her action. She cleared her throat, feeling a little foolish. "Yes."

"I don't see why you'd want to," he answered, his words slow-coming as usual, as he flexed his fingers, "You already have your own thing."

Now _that_ was a thought. She tipped her head to the side in a thoughtful gesture. "You think so?"

He smiled mildly. "Yeah. I did say that, didn't I?"

She straightened her back, and tampered with the blonde spikes at the back of his head. She resisted the urge to dip her fingers in her undrunk water and work it through his hair. "So um... you're saying I. Don't have to worry about... if we're friends or not."

"Right," he said, the kind of 'right' that was definite, but not so final that it ended the conversation. He was getting good at this communication thing. He decided to take a leap. "So you like him, I'm guessing?"

Her eyebrows shot up at this. She tried to focus on blonde, but somehow picked out every bit of red she saw in it. Oh crap, avoid it avoid it avoid it, _now_. "I thought you said that guys don't talk about other guys." The spikes she reformed were getting sloppy.

He called her on it. "Stop trying to avoid it, Teef - you're messing up my hair."

"How can you even tell? You can't see it!" she exclaimed, still avoiding the question and finishing up a deliberately more carefully sculpted spike.

"So you do?" Cloud said-asked. He didn't say much, but what he did say really hit home. Tifa was very quiet, her fingers working through his hair the only indication that she was still with him. He could tell that she was thinking, hard, because her fingers felt ghostly, like they weren't even there.

"I think so." She swallowed nothing, her face nearly blank. "And..." - this was the strangely hard, dangerous part - "I really want him to like me back."

Cloud said nothing, a little shocked, but also knowing that he should let her think more.

And think she did. But... she also felt. Tifa had never felt this before. She was cruel to herself in some ways, and one of them was to never expect anything in return from anyone, especially not feelings.

She existed only for herself for most of her life, and her habits were ground into her. She put emotions out, ideas out, and let others make of them what they would. These things existed, but if they grabbed someone's attention, she shrunk back. Practised detachment was what that was. Her habit of independence kept her from expectations of others, to the point where she almost preffered it. That way, no one could disappoint her.

But something about Reno made her demand something back. He was different. Maybe even... better. Better than her old way of living.

Cloud lifted his head, telling her she had done enough. His soft spikes disappeared from beneath her fingers, and she looked up from her daze to meet the arresting sight of his eyes.

And all she saw were _his_ eyes. No traces of anyone else.

She knew when she'd look at Reno's, she'd see no one else as well.

"Thank you."

He narrowed his eyes a fraction, the unique blue fringed by straight, dark lashes. "For? I didn't do anything."

She smiled, her eyes sincere.


	14. Impossibilities All in a Row

_Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven does not belong to me. Boo._

Author natterings: Yay, another chapter! Less slacking! Anyhoo- the serious and the silly rolled into one again. Reno and Tifa grow more into each other. 'Lena pops up again, the crazy bugger she is. This chapter's a little more on Reno. I thought it was kind of needed, after major Tifa stuff last chapter. I hope you all enjoy. As always, reviews are welcome. I'd also like to thank my regular readers for sticking by me. It's been a long time coming.

**Hidden Ache**

"I love watermelon."

"Not around me, ya don't."

"Oh, right. What else are you allergic to?"

"Nothing."

"Wait. You can take normal stuff like bug bites and... milk, but you can't eat a fruit that is mostly water?"

He squinted up at her from poking at stirfry. "Yeah. Something wrong with that?"

She smiled a little and leaned over the counter of the bar towards him. "Nope."

He didn't notice this movement, surprisingly, just picked up a pod of peas with his chopsticks. Other stirfry was too damn oily to pick up much, but Tifa's wasn't. And it tasted better too. "I didn't know how to work a washer 'til I was seventeen."

"No kidding? How? Why?" She had just done a load herself this morning. She didn't know anyone else who did their laundry in the morning. There was just something she associated with the smell of it and the rising sun.

"No need," he said, and polished off the remaining vegetables.

She felt their conversation approach a halt and about-face. That was right. She didn't really know his past, did she? And he didn't know hers.

"You're wonderin' why, aren't you?" He smirked a tiny bit. She was really so easy to read sometimes.

"I guess," she said simply. She would've thrown out a few theories, except she felt that her nonchalance would translate to jerkiness. ("Your mom did it all for you?" - his mom had died. "Too many dials for you to figure out?" - he never had one, couldn't afford it. And so on.)

"Washed it all by hand. It wasn't a hassle, seein' as how I had something like three shirts and two pairs of pants." He had gone on to sticking a toothpick in his mouth and working it around.

She nodded, her earrings swaying. She didn't know what to say. She just had this _feeling_, this gut instinct that his childhood was rough and that he didn't want to go into specifics.

He could tell she was clamming herself up. He peered at her, reading her like a book. There was no way she was dodging this. She was getting the entire Reno 101 course, whether she liked it or not. "Hey," he said, like he was actually saying hello all over again. When she didn't respond, he caught her chin in his fingers, tilted her head up. "Hey."

Her eyes were widened in surprise, her lashes accenting the innocent gesture.

He wanted to grin like the wolf would've at Red Riding Hood, but somehow managed to stifle the urge. "You don't have to be afraid to ask, you know."

She lowered her chin, and Reno's hand melted away. "Of what?" she asked, voice small, her nails scratching the countertop without focus.

"Here, why don't we set up a system." He got into position, his deal-making posture. "You ask me what you want about my past. I answer. The whole truth and nothing but. And, if you'll allow it, milady..." - he trailed off to grin at her, and a weak smile flickered across her face - "I do the same with you."

Her hands twisted in each other. "I don't know, Reno..."

He held his hands up, palms facing outward. "It'll be like the "Our Pasts" edition of our game. Anyways, I'm not hearin' it, Teef. Go ahead. I know you're dying to learn more anyway."

She bit her lower lip just a tad. Where should she start? As a true daughter would wonder, and as a person suspecting that these people did only exist in the past, she asked, "Where are your parents?"

"Dead," he stated matter-of-fact. Like he was dealing out cards. "Well, mom is. My father I dunno. I just assume he is."

"You haven't...?"

He picked up on her train of thought. "Nope. I'm not chasin' him. Let him do what he wants."

"Right," she said without conviction. She started gnawing on her lip again.

"My mom had this heart problem. Died young," and here he took on a wistful tone, though you'd have to be Tseng or Rude to be able to tell. "I miss her."

She listened, feeling guilty. He didn't have to tell her this. He didn't have to start it...

"Yours?"

She felt a little winded suddenly, just like she always did when her parents came up. "They... um..." she gulped. Five years. Five years she'd been a family of one, and she still couldn't say it. "They're... both dead."

He'd suspected that. A girl didn't get this smart this young, unless something abnormal happened. And even though he'd suspected it, it didn't mean he was prepared for that look on her face.

"My mother died when I was little. I was seven." You could tell it was torture for her to talk like this. She kept on though. "My father... was the best man I'd ever known. He-- Sephiroth--" her voice quieted to a whisper. "Sephiroth killed him."

The mako in his eyes flared, heightening his vision momentarily. He saw the veins in her fighter's hands, detected that scrape of skin against skin as she rubbed her forearms. And he didn't need sight for this - he could tell she had just unearthed something fiercely sad. And he'd had a hand in it.

She turned her fingertips white, pressing them into her triceps. "It's why I joined AVALANCHE really. I thought of... revenge. Be--before I thought of doing something actually... noble."

He watched her very carefully. The irises of his eyes seemed to darken, framed by lashes. He forgotten he had worked for Shin-Ra. No offense taken, none at all. All he could think of was her here, and her then.

How could he say... what he wanted to? He wouldn't normally give a damn how he said what, it was just... this was more important than his day-to-day stuff. It was.

A breath came through her mouth shakily.

"Tifa."

She looked right at him right away, her eyes wide as to not squeeze out any tears.

"It's alright." His head moved subtly, in a miniature nod. "That's just human."

"What?" she asked softly. She looked so young, like she might have when caught between her parents' deaths and finding a way.

"_You._" He went against his old instinct and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Thinking of your parents first... it just makes sense." The words felt funny sliding through his throat and out his lips, lips that had never greeted a father.

She felt that _prick_, followed by the flutter of tingles up her scalp. "I... know." The same tingles over her shoulders. "I just think... I'm not really-- really what people think I am."

"A hero?" His grip lightened and he dipped his neck down to look her in the eye.

"A hero," she nodded sadly. Why did the things she do seem so melodramatic sometimes?

"Then don't. Just think of yourself as what you _are to yourself_. Or what you want to be." These words were so sturdy, so full of belief, that they commanded her into looking at him.

Back in his Turk days, even before then, Reno was single-minded, incredibly tough and completely relentless. (He still was. He was.) If he had a goal, he would work for it, non-stop. But the days he didn't feel like working, he reminded himself to believe, and he'd go back out there and chase and tie down his dream. The words he was speaking were straight from the heart, unlike so much else. _These_ words, these words of absolute unseen faith in oneself, were Reno's personal mantra.

"If you don't like your label, give yourself a new one. If people don't believe, show them you're serious. If you _feel_ like you can't do something, _know_ you can."

She was crying by now, blobby fragments of red and green and mystery colour in her vision. She could say nothing coherent, nothing that would or could possibly express her grief and thankfulness.

Seeing tears travel over her cheeks and lips without her caring at all, Reno felt he might cry himself. But before she could see the impossible, she surprised him by stepping forward and smudging those tears against his shirt.

Later, the moment would carry a great weight. It would fall into their hands like a filmstrip, somehow playing, tumbling end over end. It would be jerky and play her step forward again and again inside a half-finished bar. It would cut back to somedays before when he had first taken that step in front of a billboard. It might not have mattered much, who took that first step towards the other. Because later, neither would be afraid to do it. But they liked to think it was a good start to something.

--------

"Push!"

"I- ergh- am!"

"I didn't say you weren't!" Honestly, a comment like that could only come out of his mouth.

She looked over his shoulder to see that he was just about to back into the doorframe. "Watch out!"

Too late. The vertabrae of his spine connected with the edge of the frame, and he instantly stopped pulling to rub his back. "Yeowch."

With anyone else she would've asked if they were alright. "You are so clumsy."

"If you hadn't rammed me into the doorframe..."

"You were telling me to push!"

"Chyeah. Like that had anything to do with my spinal cord injury."

"It does," she argued. She was beginning to think she needed these mini-fights when he was around. "And it's not a spinal cord injury. A bruise. Maybe."

"I bruise like a peach."

"No, you don't. I distinctly remember punching you in the jaw before, and you didn't bleed at all." Regardless, she had gravitated towards him.

He didn't flinch at the mention of the past. That was expected. But he didn't see her flinch either. He hoisted himself up on top of the thing they had been moving - a freezer. "Ah, but." He held up a finger, "That does not mean I did not bruise."

"Well, did you?" Her hands were on her hips. Her smirk was on her face.

He rubbed his knuckles over the bump of his vertabrae and smirked right back. "From a girly punch like yours? No way."

She tried to give him a withering glare, but it was too half-hearted. Instead, she walked around the freezer, and lifted up the back of his shirt to check the injury.

This was too good. The redhead said loudly and confidently, "I knew you'd be stripping me eventually."

Tifa turned the tiniest bit pink. Only a little, because she knew it wasn't true. This was what she got for being caring...

It was at that moment that Cloud came in with one of the megapacks of ice. He raised his eyebrows until they disappeared into his bangs, but said nothing. He strode over to the two of them, intensifying some fear in each. For Tifa, it was that he would say something that would deepen her blush. For Reno, it was that he would horribly break the moment by sweeping Tifa away.

But Cloud did neither. "Excuse me," he said to Reno.

"Yes?" the redhead said defensively, the normally polite word carrying frostiness.

"The freezer," Cloud stated.

It took a good while before Reno finally realized that Cloud needed to put down the ice and that the optimal place would be in the freezer, which Reno was currently sitting on. "Oh, right." He felt kind of moronic, but refused to show it in front of superhero.

His dismounting required Tifa to dislodge her fingers from underneath his shirt, which he felt a mild regret at. But it had to be done.

Cloud unloaded the ice in the not-plugged-in freezer. The inside of his bare arms were red from the cold. Then he turned to Tifa. "Do you want to keep moving this?"

Her eyes darted to Reno, as if for confirmation. But they just as quick went back to Cloud. "Yeah." Her fingers that had felt the warm skin of Reno's back were now pressed into the muscle of her upper arm.

Blondie set to work manuvering the freezer towards the closest plug-in behind the counter. His presence felt like some kind of invisible cleaver to Reno. The understanding between them was not so clear yet. Cloud did not seem to reluctantly resign himself to Reno's presence, nor did he welcome it with open arms. Reno on the other hand, saw Cloud as an interference.

Cloud was smarter than he looked. (And hey, you gotta admit that he looked pretty, ah, _blonde_.) In the first hours of dawn of the day, Reno thought about the guy. He saw that Cloud knew his own place in Tifa's life. He didn't act threatened by Reno at all. His certainty about his position made Reno less certain. Did Cloud really have so much confidence in his Teefy that he'd let her hang out with a former conman? Sure seemed like it.

He also wondered - what exactly was _going on there?_ Cloud and Tifa. Tifa and Cloud. What the heck did they have? They obviously made each other happy - Tifa's behaviour as of late was enough to prove that. They relied on each other a lot too. They were so tight-knit, Reno just had to wonder what miracle had pulled itself over the past few weeks. A month or two ago, Tifa was crying over how strained their relationship had become. Now they were two birds of a feather.

_Why Cloud?_ Reno asked that figurative miracle. _Why not me?_

"Um, Reno?"

He turned to her. "Yes'm?" Spike was suddenly behind her. He couldn't shake the association that went with the image. They looked good together, and it made Reno feel a little sick.

"Aren't those your friends?" Cloud asked. His voice had a nice tenor-bass quality, and Reno found himself really hating it.

He looked over his shoulder, then followed through with a body turn. Sure enough, it was Rude and Elena.

"One second," he told them, and pulled open the door. His hands found their way to his pockets. "What's up?"

"I just needed to see it with my own two eyes," Elena said by way of greeting.

"What?" Reno said, forgoing a 'pardon?' or 'excuse me?'. Politeness didn't slide so easily into his words. "Rude, what's she talkin' about?" He jabbed his thumb towards the youngest ex-Turk.

Rude merely raised his eyebrows as if to say, _are you serious?_

"Right. Like it isn't obvious." Elena laughed a little, looking at Rude and not caring if he looked back. Her wrist flopped in imitation of a ditz.

What? He would've made a 'what the fuck' face, but he got the impression that it would be some kind of fodder for Elena in her crazy state.

"Riight. If you guys are gonna waste my time--"

"You'd rather spend time with her than us?" Elena seemed to squeak. Her face wasn't sad, but edging on delighted.

Reno checked her pupils, leaning in close. "You're seriously messed up, 'Lena. Have you killed anything lately?"

"No," she brushed off his deflection easily. "I just think it's cute how in love you are with her." The pink of her lips forming that word struck him as so very clichéd. And still, he found himself reacting.

"What? What made you think that?" Reno analyzed Rude for signs of betrayal.

Elena detected this. "Oh, Rude didn't say anything. Well, he did, but just that you've been spending _more_ time with Tifa lately, and--"

"Since when do you call her Tifa?" Reno asked, irked for some reason.

"Oh, I don't know. I just thought that since _you're_ on familiar terms with her, I might as well ease myself into it, since we're bound to meet her in some kind of girlfriend context sooner or later..."

Reno's confusion showed on his face.

"... and it'd just be tacky to call her 'Lockheart' or 'AVALANCHE girl' to her face, right?" Her ramble petered off as Rude grimaced at her, their signal that she was talking too much.

Reno's hair fell in his face, but he didn't notice on account of being so engrossed in lowering one eyebrow and raising the other. 'What the fuck' face indeed. "Listen, 'Len. I dunno what stuff you've cooked up in that psycho imagination of yours, but me and Tifa... we're not like that." (If only he knew how Tifa herself had thought those same words before.)

Elena almost snorted. "Right. Hey, can we go inside?" she asked without waiting for confirmation. Rude followed, seeming to glide behind her.

He would've stopped them. He would've thrown himself in between the entrance and his two closest friends in the world, except that didn't really reflect the cool persona he was going for with Tifa.

"You have good posture for someone with no backbone," Rude said.

_You imagined that,_ Reno told himself.

--------

Doom loomed.

Tifa (he didn't mean to name her first), Cloud, Rude and Elena all in a room together. Reno could not imagine all the ways this could end up as disastrous.

Ten minutes in, Cloud got drinks for everyone. Reno imagined the blonde slipping something like E or meth in Rude's and Elena's.

Fifteen minutes in, Rude chuckled. Reno warped it into an evil one, a 'boy, do you not know what I have in store for you' chuckle.

Half an hour in, Tifa went to the bathroom. When she came back, she sat next to Reno. Their thighs touched.

That was about when he realized that Cloud did not have bad intentions and that Rude wasn't faking it and that everyone else was having a dandy time.

This puzzled him. How could they be getting along? How was it possible, in any way, for such major enemies to be laughing it up over a couple of Bailey's? Granted, that was kinda what Tifa and he had done, but still. How?

After the sun had sunk and goodbyes were bid, the trio exited.

"How _the hell_ did that just happen?"

Rude gave him a look of measured understanding and disappointment. Elena was more blunt.

"Reno, is it possible for you not to be so negative about everything?"

Uh. Agressive Elena. Okay.

Her work trousers blew against her legs as she walked. "Can't you see that we're really making an effort?"

Reno was silent. How could he respond? This whole evening was baffling enough already.

She stopped in her tracks and whirled around to face him. The blonde of her hair looked white in the light of the streetlamp. "Maybe you should take the time to realize that you're one of the people we like best, and that we care about you."

He looked at her.

She looked right back. "This is what friends do."

And distantly, it hit him that that was what Cloud did for Tifa. But more, he felt a strange kind of thankfulness for having two crazy friends for a crazy like him.


	15. Seriously Scuffed

_Disclaimer: FFVII belongs to Square Enix._

Author natterings: This was written for some overdue perspective into Reno's view of the whole "Tifa + Reno?" thing. (And that darned self-imposed challenge of his. Hmmmmmm.) And because I like exploring the endless trove of mystery and possibility that is Reno. Whoo. Feedback is great.

**Hidden Ache**

Fresh from the shower and without a shirt, Reno sat crossed-legged on his crusty carpet. It needed a good vacuuming, but hey, he wasn't gonna do it. Maybe he could hire someone.

He didn't have that much money to throw around though. The broken seam of his mattress - his storage place - revealed that he was seriously low on gil. He grimaced. He'd have to take on another job. There were about four stacked on his answering machine.

But that could wait. He was too focused on this to stop.

Enemies to acquaintances to kinda friends to friends. At least he thought. He wondered if they really were friends. Oh well. He didn't like wasting much time with that phase anyway. He bit the eraser of a pencil. (He'd thought about writing this all out, but it struck him that that was a really stupid thing to do, so now he was just holding the pencil.)

Now... he'd crossed the boundaries of 'friends' a couple times already. He was kind of disappointed at the number of actual occurences, lower than usual. He just didn't want to push it. It was stupid, but he kind of worried... about how he'd seem in her eyes if he did that.

He pulled fingers through overly long tresses. But why should he care? It's not like he planned on keeping contact after this was all done anyway, right? Why care if he'd be gone?

He knew even as he thought it that he was lying to himself.

_This is a damn fine mess you've got yourself into,_ he told himself. Should he stop? As much as he hated the idea of walking away from the challenge, the thought of hurting Tifa - geniune, nice Tifa - didn't sit so well with him anymore.

Stupid sensitivity. He needed some weedkiller for the conscience.

Well - the thought dawned on him - the idea of going on with it did hold _a lot_ of appeal to him. It was _ending_ it that had kinda lost its shine.

So what was the alternative? _Actually having a relationship with her?_ Had he not been leaning against the foot of his bed, he might've fallen over.

To inhibit further thought on this, he found his answering machine. There were only five messages. He'd wisened up and learned not to give girls (except Elena) methods of contacting him, otherwise he'd go through about ten tapes a year. He was just telling it like it was. No point in being humble. He jabbed the playback button with his thumb. Ten points for accuracy.

"Got a job for you. Meet seven, saturday at The Chai." _Beep._

Oops. Oh well, he hated the crowd at that pansy club anyway. He examined the number of clips he had left. Two.

"Hey, bud. Do ya do outta town commissions? Gimme a call back." _Beep._

Nope. The trip would come out of his pay, most likely. Hm... two clips meant six kills. Even though he could get someone with just one bullet and conserve, he liked the signature Turk style.

"Renooo! You there? Hello? Okay, you're not there. If you are, you're a total ass. Anyways, we're coming by, friday lunch. Giving you an advance warning, since you'll probably check this friday morning. Ha ha. Mmkay... see you soon." _Beep._

Elena was such a jabbermouth. Besides, it was thursday. He sure showed her. He scratched above his stomach. His abs were getting kinda shallow. Should he remedy that?

"Hey, kid. It's me again, ha ha. Got another thorn in my side, ya know what I mean. Same place, same time. Thursday. Got it?" _Beep._

Bingo. He hit the stop button. He pulled on a light blue collared shirt, one of his two blazers, and perched his sunglasses atop his head. He slipped his gun in his pocket and clipped his mag rod to a belt buckle. Rodney's usually put up a fight.

He had awhile though, so he towelled his hair a bit more. It was getting long. Hm.

Did Cloud's hair grow? It was always the same length no matter when Reno saw him. Which was pretty often now, actually. He'd seen Cloud three or four times this week already. The blondie probably maintained it constantly.

Reno was suddenly struck with an image of Tifa doing Spike's hair. It irked him that it probably wasn't far from the truth. He wondered if Tifa would be any good with his own hair. He could see it. She had nice hair herself...

Oh, crap. Late. And past the ten-minutes-doesn't-count rule too. Or was it five minutes? Oh well. For Reno, it was always ten.

A quiet walk and roughly eighteen minutes later...

"Yer late. Then again, when aren't ya?" Rodney was the chummy type, but not a sucker. He paid half upfront, like Reno insisted, and was constantly pissed off by idiots. In short, he was just the kind of customer Reno liked best.

"Shut up, Rodney." Reno spun his chair around and sat on it backwards, just 'cause he felt like it. One of the baristas came by with a scone and gave him a wink.

"Charmin' them like always, huh, Reno?" Rodney laughed loudly.

Reno just shook his head and tore off some of the scone. He hadn't talked to her - Matty? Patty? - for a couple of months now. Whatever.

"Whatsamatter? Not proud anymore?" Rod let out another guffaw.

Reno stared at nothing. "She's a whore anyway," he said through a full mouth. He swallowed. "What do you got?"

Rodney took a sip of his coffee, black. He could only fit three of his thick fingers around the handle of the mug. "Lousy upstart kid. Dickie. He's a dick, alright."

Reno gave a small snort.

"I'm not gonna give ya tha whole story. You wouldn't wanna hear anyway. He'll be dickin' around the warehouse all day. Got a real mouth on 'im. 'Stead a knuckles, he wears rings. Like a pimp. What the fuck does he think he is?"

"Mm-hm," Reno said, more to silence him than anything else. "By tonight?"

"If ya can," Rod said warmly, as if they were discussing kittens. "Here's half, like we always do." He slid over a wallet, as if he were returning the lost thing to Reno.

"Thanks, Rod. The rest tomorrow."

"Same time, same place. And hey, I'm a nice guy."

"Ha. See ya."

Rod laughed. "See ya, kid."

Reno left. Matty/Patty wouldn't charge for the scone, but that was a given.

--------

After Dickie, Reno had suffered a seriously scuffed shoe but not much else. He didn't even think about yanking the rings off his fingers. That was just a little too sick for his tastes. Reno might not have been classy, but he was definitely not trashy. He'd kept his professional outlook - a streamlined kill was best.

He'd done his work for the day and it wasn't even lunch yet. Barely having broken a sweat but with some adrenaline in his system, Reno decided now would be a good time for some sparring. Rude maybe?

Here's something outta left field for you: _Cloud maybe?_

Reno frowned through his grin. How likely was that to happen? Unless Reno somehow invented a time machine, not very. And he wasn't about to _ask_ the guy...

Then it hit him: piss Cloud off. Gods, wasn't that the obvious route to take?

He slammed shoulders with another pedestrian, but didn't blink. The other man turned around to frown and yell.

Then again, did Reno really want to go that far just to get a workout? There were other things to consider, like Spike would be taking it seriously. And Blondie _had_ whooped his ass before. But those were just little nuisances.

The prime thing was: how lazy was Reno?

Well, the answer was pretty damn lazy. But on the other hand, he _had_ been wanting to cheese Cloud off for awhile now. It was payback. The blonde had been getting under Reno's skin for_ever_, and he felt like the superhero-heartthrob should get what was due.

And if you were thinking that it had anything to do with Tifa, you better be prepared to get beaned by a scuffed shoe.

--------

"So, you gonna admit it anytime soon?" Reno took very precise, jokey steps around her.

"What would that be?" she played along. She was testing the reliability of the new sink nozzle, and occasionally she'd furrow her brow and frown, which made her look pretty darn cute.

He made sure that he was loud enough to be heard from across the room. "Oh, that you're in love with me."

"That's a pretty strong term to be tossing around," she commented, avoiding the actual topic as best as she could. She reached under the sink to fiddle with something.

"Ah," he said, a trace of easy cockiness in his tone, "But isn't that how you feel? Strongly?" Behind him, he heard something metal drop to the floor. Oh Cloudy-kins, getting fumbly?

The flow of water was finally regular. Tifa washed her hands in its torrent. "If you say so, Reno." How was she supposed to respond to something like that?

The redhead smiled with his teeth. "Eh, it's a start." And he moved to lay his palm flat against the countertop.

That was when Reno committed - depending on your viewpoint - either a very stupid tactical error or a very smart one. He himself was more inclined to think the former.

Reno's straightened, flattened, bony, made-to-pull-a-trigger fingers landed right on top of Tifa's fingers, already resting on the countertop.

This was not the kind of intimacy Reno dealt with. Hugging was weird enough, but it could at least be twisted into some kind of suggestion at lustiness. Poking her nose was straight flirting. Almost lying on top of her was - well, obvious. But hand-touching. Hand-touching was innocent. Hand-touching was support. Hand-touching was just to feel them there, to know they loved you.

Reno didn't do hand-touching. It just didn't come with him, like how contraptions never came with instructions that made sense. Reno couldn't play off hand-touching. What did he do? Pull away? That didn't seem right. Keep it there? That wasn't right either.

Mistake or no, her eyes met his. She was caught off-guard, that could be certain. She probably knew it wasn't on purpose. And yet, there was this quality, some emotion, undercut by caution.

Her eyes were easy to get lost in, on account of all that was readable and unreadable in them. The time for Reno to make a snarky comment had passed. The impression he wanted to give off kept him from acting and still, urged him to do something.

Subconsciously or unconsciously, whichever, Reno's fingers pressed down. They were just fingers, so the pressure was small, but Tifa felt it. She was semi-frozen by the potential of its meaning. He was still looking right into her eyes.

What was that emotion in them that he couldn't read? Damn, this girl was hard to figure out sometimes...

"Reno," her voice was careful, quiet, "You hand is..."

He blinked very slowly. "... I know." The words were drooping in the air, weighed by the smallest bit of annoyance. Why couldn't he figure out what to do? Why couldn't he name what he saw in her eyes?

Then, feeling as if were underwater, he lifted his hand from hers. "Sorry," he said, because he did feel sorry for inviting this awkward, other aspect of their relationship into the room.

He had been watching, he'd have seen her face fall at the word. "It's okay," she lied. She didn't want him to be sorry. She made steps past him toward the backroom, while he stood like a vegetable. He had the sensation that he'd taken two steps forward, and one back.

It was like that for a long time. Reno stood still while a weak regret bombarded him. He should have said something else. Tifa's reaction left a lot to be desired, and that was the least he could say. He felt kind of... guilty after she left. There wasn't much to feel obvious guilt for. It was a sneaky, seep-into-your-bones guilt.

He wondered, detachedly, what that was that made her look so lively at his touch.

"Reno?"

"Hm?" He turned his torso in the direction of the voice. It was... Cloud?

Oh, crap. He _had_ pissed the blonde off, hadn't he? And now Reno would get his sparring, just when he'd slipped out of the mood for it. He tried not to clench his jaw.

"Could we talk? Outside?" Cloud was standing in the middle of the room, away from his work on the door. He'd taken the few steps closer because Reno hadn't seemed to have heard him the first time he called. The silver zipper of his shirt caught the mellow sunlight shining into the bar, and reflected bursts of light. It was blinding white against the tint of yellow-orange draped over everything else.

Reno squinted at its brilliance. "Yeah." And stepped out from behind the counter.

A polite chiming went off as the door of the bar opened and closed, and Reno knew that Cloud had done his job correctly. Wow. Handyman too. Reno suddenly felt that he'd be a lot less impressed if he discovered if Cloud had any other talents. Violin... inventing his own coffee... now seemed somehow more plausible because of Cloud's total amazingness. (Reno was blind to his own sauciness.)

The two men stopped two stores over from the bar when Cloud about-faced. He looked at the base of a showcase window, his face and stance tinged with awkwardness.

Reno noticed this. He sensed that Cloud was probably not going to punch him in the face, but he could not sense any inkling of what might come. He was also the impatient type. "Yeah?" he said rudely.

Cloud looked up, his brows furrowed and eyes hard-- and then the look disappeared, just like _that_. "It's about Tifa."

He leaned against the display window of the store. "Okay." He spoke like Cloud was wasting his time.

Cloud wasn't stupid. He knew how Reno was approaching this. He also knew that saying 'hey, listen up' was like saying 'hey, have a verbal battle with me'. He just hoped his words could get across to the ex-Turk. "You know she's a strong person."

Reno was suddenly wrong-footed. That wasn't an opening line he expected. How was this going to unfold? "Uh-huh."

"Well, sometimes, she won't feel that way."

He nodded. Everyone was like that. "Right."

"She hides it." Cloud looked almost at a loss here, his blue eyes unfocused. "She's been a public face for so long... I think she's made it a habit to seem happy. For everyone else."

Reno's eyes narrowed at the words. Those words sounded too close to being true.

Tifa was a caring woman. She worried about others more than your average anyone. She worried about the effect _she_ might have on them. And with their talk a few days ago about being a hero, practically a role model...

"Reno."

When Reno looked up, he was met with one of the most determined looks that would ever grace Cloud's face. His mouth was a firm line. His eyebrows were drawn down. His eyes looked straight into Reno's. They were a bit of a different story. His eyes saw what was happening, saw the amazing good that could occur. He also saw how hurt Tifa could end up being. It tore him apart inside to see her hurt. He couldn't love her the right way. But damn, if Reno couldn't either...

"Don't hurt her."

Reno stood riveted to his spot, the look in Cloud's eyes hitting home and beyond.

And then he could've cursed outloud at the thought that finally hit him, the name of the look on Tifa's face. It was yearning.

She actually liked him.

Reno's mind stuttered. It wasn't until a few seconds later that he noticed Cloud shouldering his way through the crowd back to the bar.

"Cloud!"

Cloud turned and paused.

Reno slipped through the crowd - though not without difficulty - to get to where the blonde stood.

"Hey, could I ask you something?" He felt out of breath, he didn't know why. He'd thought he'd figured something out, that night on the sidewalk under that streetlamp, Elena's hair blowing white in the breeze. Maybe he hadn't.

Cloud nodded.

"You and Tifa," - he struggled to keep looking Cloud in the eye - "How do you... what are you?"

Cloud looked nearly taken aback, surprise lighting up in his unusual eyes. He spoke with such ease, with such lightness, it had to be true, "We're best friends."

Reno nodded quickly to acknowledge that. "Yeah, okay. But why _care_ so much about this? Doesn't this stretch beyond that? I mean, why give a damn about _me_?"

Cloud tipped his head in wonder. He was right in assuming the redhead was naïve in some ways. This was one of them. "We're more than best friends. We are _beyond that_." Then he looked at the diluted blue of the sky, and knew there were no words for it. He could only simplify it, give it a label of 'best friends'. What was there to say? "I can't describe it. I... care about her."

Something in Reno felt displaced. Their bond was obviously very deep. "You love her, huh?" He felt like an adolescent in the face of their relationship.

"Yes," Cloud answered. "You must know how I mean."

Reno blinked. "Wait. What?"

Cloud demeanor had slowly softened. "You do this for Elena, right?"

Hearing Cloud speak of Elena with an air of familiarity put him off all the more. He managed a scoff. "Uh. No."

Cloud just crinkled his eyes in an amused, wise way. "It's what you do for Tseng."


	16. Toe Curling

_Disclaimer: Reno, Tifa, Cloud (I have a soft spot for him, I do), Elena, Rude, Tseng, Aerith, Cid, Barret and Marlene belong to Square Enix. I own Stuttery Florist, Squeaky Fangirls, Matty/Patty and a few others you don't want anyway._

Author natterings: Longgg chapter. At least relatively. This one's got a Reno feel to it. I felt like some pretty imagery this chapter around. I don't know why I associate Reno with pretty imagery, stuff like "simple poetry" and "black and white photographs". I guess you could say it's all an extension of Reno's feelings.  
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy chapter sixteen, and reviews are always welcome.

**Hidden Ache**

Reno backed himself against a wall roughly and gave a strangled sounding moan. He cast a sultry glance her way. "Oh, _Tifa_. You fox. You're tailing me."

She sat in front of a bright orange billboard, about three metres away from where he stood (or slouched sensually, depending on how much you wanted to think that). She smiled at him through the early morning fog. It was unseasonal fog and it made the city a little more eerie than usual.

Okay, so she wasn't coming over. He pushed away from the rough cement and joined her. "So, do you come here often?"

Tifa turned her head marginally to look at him through the corner of her eye. "We're not sitting in a bar, so you don't have to pull that line on me."

Yeowch.

He sat down next to her, flipping up his coattails. Then he swayed purposely into her, knocking her knees and her right shoulder. "What's up? Cloud twisted your panties the wrong way?"

She looked straight at him now, an eyebrow up. Reno had called him Cloud. Not Spike. Or Blondie.

"Hey, sorry. Just sayin'." He knew they weren't like that. Still. "A girl like you has to have a boyfriend, right?"

She shook her head, feeling suddenly like she might cry. She knew he was just playing around. "Back to the bar script, huh?"

He shrugged. "I'm full of lines today." He rested a forearm on a bent knee, and she noticed he was holding a bottle of wine, swinging back and forth.

She pointed to it. "So early in the morning?"

He shrugged again. "I'm not _drinking_ it. 'Len and Rude and me are meetin' up lunchtime. Got some wine for the apartment."

She nodded. Wine at what would most likely be a casual lunch struck her as unnecessary, but what the hey.

The fog was pretty strange. She didn't _feel_ the moisture. In fact, she felt less hydrated. Maybe the fog was a product of all the water being sucked out of her body and hung in the air, like clothes on a clotheshanger. And she was left, dry as a husk.

Depressed, you say? Why, what could have given you that notion?

After yesterday's hand thing, Reno hadn't returned. Cloud had tried to cheer her up, but really, baking wasn't the blonde's forté. The only thing that had cheered her up was seeing him with a checkered apron tied around his waist. She'd almost died laughing when he tried to tug it off in embarassment, and the knot tightened.

Yeah, anyway. Now, kablam, Reno was back. Big whoop. This 'here one day, gone the other' routine was getting old. So were the lines. They really were _not_ what she needed right now.

Reno presented, whether he meant to or not, some idea of a sweeping romance to her. It was pretty stupid of her to think, yeah. Still, she thought it.

"You didn't answer," he said suddenly. He was swirling the wine in its bottle, the bones of his wrist cracking quietly.

"What didn't I answer?" she asked. She looked up, kind of feebly, at the billboard, the retro lettering and giant peach seeming very surreal through the fog.

He waved a hand goofily through the moisture, stirring up miniature clouds. "If you come here often."

"Oh, that was serious," she said flatly, just to be mean. "Not really. This is the first time."

"Except for that time _I_ took you here." He was still messing around with the fog.

"Mm-hm."

"So you love it?" he asked playfully, trying again.

"Absolutely," she said with about as much enthusiasm as she had for dunking her head into a bucket of paint.

He made a mild version of his 'what-the-fuck' face. He set the wine bottle down. "Okay, I give, Teef. What's up?"

She felt like she should smack him, but she didn't. "Nothing." _A whole lot of it._

"And you're upset about that?"

She knew he didn't mean it, but it really seemed like he was mocking her. How could he not _see_ it? She was so frustrated, and he was such a master and such a Turk and such an 'I have training in reading people' and she was such an absolute loser.

"Yes, I am." She didn't care if she sounded like a brat.

"So you want something to happen." If she were listening more carefully, she would've heard some trepidation in his voice.

"Pretty much." There was a cocky nonchalance edging its way into her manner, beginning to push out the fatigue and frustration. It planted words in her mouth and let them roll down her tongue without bypassing her brain. "I think I'm going to go somewhere."

"Oh, yeah?" he said, fighting to stay casual. "Why don't I walk ya?"

She looked right at his face, just to see it as she said it. "Unless you can walk me to Corel, there's not much chance of that happening."

She loved his face as it changed. Total incomprehension, then narrowing eyes, tightening mouth, then parting lips, almost pursed in question. "You're going to Corel?"

She shrugged, satisfied. "I thought I'd visit." This was true. She'd thought about it for a little while already, just deep down. Nothing surface.

"Well, uh, when were you thinking?" He ran his finger in spirals over the concrete.

She leaned backwards, supporting her weight with her palms. "Oh, I don't know. Sometime before I open the bar. I'm going to be busy with it. I might as well have a break." This thought had also lived deep inside her.

"How are you getting there?" He tried his best to not sound tired, though he suddenly felt that way. He wanted to mash his face into his palm and quash his nose.

"I'd call Cid," she said simply.

He nodded, finding this logical. "And leave Cloud behind?"

She'd thought about that actually. In those rare instances she'd given it thought, she saw him with her in her mind's eye. She sat back up, her legs bent. "Probably not. I want to see Barret and Marlene," she said, again, simply. She wasn't giving him any satisfaction with her succinct answers. The ease that came with a friendly conversation, the natural smile thinking of those you loved, she kept for herself and felt selfish. She was acutely aware of her fingers entwined in the space between her torso and thighs, as if containing her heart. It was funny, because she felt like such a bitch, so heart_less_, for talking to him like this.

Reno didn't pretend to not feel struck by all this information. But he wouldn't wear his heart on his sleeve. "Well. Tell me when you're going, alright?" His tone was so light. Lying to himself, to others was so easy. "I've gotta go meet up with 'Len and Rude."

She watched him leave, while she, the one who was supposed to be going somewhere big, stayed put on the concrete in the city of her past. It was only after he'd left completely that she noticed his wine still sitting in its bottle, red behind green making an unattractive brown. She imprinted her fingernail in the cork. She took it with her, not to her bar, but to her house.

It was funny and so stupid, because when Reno had acted resigned to her leaving, she wasn't even sure she wanted to anymore. She'd thought he would've fought for her to stay. Her key stuck in the lock, and she had to jiggle and jaggle and wiggle and waggle.

But maybe that wasn't how he felt. Maybe, the thought shot into her mind, he felt a different way. A way mature enough to let her leave.

It was eleven o' clock. She poured herself some of the wine. She curled up on her couch, the glass in her hand. She wished she had some maturity. Enough to not play with people's minds.

In the middle of her doing absolutely nothing, Cloud came down the stairs, his steps a tad faster than the ticking of the clock on the wall. "Hey."

"Hi," she greeted him half-heartedly, taking a sip of the wine.

Cloud furrowed his brow in plain disapproval, then pointed to the half glass in her hand. "So early?"

"Hmm," she hummed, still drinking. Then when she finished, "Why not?"

He raised his eyebrows charmingly and scratched his bicep. "As long as it's not going to be a habit, I'm fine with it."

"Harhar," she said in response. She gave him a fake calculating look. Then, with actual conviction, "Sit, Strife."

He obeyed, crashing, teenager-like, into the cushion next to her. He had changed so much, and God she couldn't say how much she loved it. Loved him. She leaned her head on his bicep, the one he had scratched, not realizing her hands were empty and she must've put the glass down already. He put an arm around her protectively.

"Good God, Cloud. Why aren't I dating _you_?" she mused.

He cracked a smile. "You know it doesn't fit right."

She breathed out deeply. "I know. It- it's just so hard. How can this be so... full. And the other not?"

"Don't go underestimating anything," he told her. His palm was warm, rubbing her arm unconsciously. His boy smell was comforting. "You have more than you think. Maybe not enough to fill _these_ shoes, but more than you think," he laughed.

"Did you just make a joke without being snappy?" She smiled. "By jove, I think he's got it."

--------

Reno was all the way to their halfway point, hoping to catch them, when he realized he'd forgotten the wine. Oh well. Tifa would put it to good use at least.

Reno hummed in place, some dumb poppy song from his elementary schooldays, and kicked up currents to stir the strange fog on the ground.

The halfway point was exactly as it sounded - a halfway point. Halfway between Elena's, Rude's and his apartments. You had to walk through it to get to anyone else's apartment - it was a simple fact of geography. Unless you wanted to brave going around the perimeter, which was not only inconvenient, but stupid.

Rude arrived first. Reno knew for a fact that it took four more minutes to get to his place, and it was 11:56. Rude was Rude - solid as a rock and on the dot. Reno never knew why Rude wasn't Tseng's second. (Reno suspected it was his own natural good looks that vaulted him into second, but one never knows.)

"Eleven minutes past."

Rude paused, considering. "Seven."

"You're on." Reno grinned and leaned against a statue. Passersby gave them a considerable buffer. Reno wasn't surprised - he'd worn his nazy blazer today.

11:59. "Are you going through with it?" Rude asked.

"If you mean this lunch, and are offering me a way out, I'll oblige ya," Reno half-threatened, getting tired of this.

"I meant..." Rude trailed off, letting Reno fill in the blanks. Reno wasn't stupid. He was just playing it.

Reno knew arguing was useless. He just ended up proving himself less mature, cool-headed and manly than Rude anyway. He waved a hand in irritation. "... Nah."

Reno could've sworn Rude physically jumped at this information. His voice, deep and calm as usual, however, smoothed this over. "What made you change your mind?"

"Could have something to do with the fact that I _can't_, seeing as she's leaving the city for awhile," he said half-truthfully.

Rude said nothing for awhile. Then, "Will you still?"

Reno itched at his collar, just for something to do. "Don't know anymore, to be honest."

Though it didn't look it, Rude stared at him hard from behind the glasses. He wanted to see how truthful Reno was being, but after awhile verified what was said - Reno didn't know.

Reno felt Rude's scrutiny and almost frowned. Rude was the one who could see past Reno's façades (generally) with ease. But Reno knew when to feint, knew when to bluff and knew how to put up with more bullshit than anyone else. He was the champion, really. They always used to send him in for the interrogations, his role as the Crazy-Good Motherfuck and Rude standing in the quiet black as the Brawn. So really, knowing from a Turk's experience, Reno's armour was solid.

He didn't need it to be. He was genuinely lost on the Tifa issue. Adrift, one could say. _Actually_, he had been already for awhile. He hummed in the back of his throat, a hum with no melody. And she was leaving him. For how long, he couldn't say.

Hm hm. He really couldn't go through with it. If he could, he'd have done it already, wouldn't he have? This had gone on for too long to be a game anymore. It was startingly real. Tifa was startingly real. And as much as he hated reality, he couldn't hate her.

He liked her in this weird, cautious way. Since the very first day, up to just this moment. Yesterday, it was yesterday that bothered the hell out of him. Finding out her feelings.

He creased his brow. This was getting more difficult to admit to himself. He felt his mind bend, corkscrew-like, just to get a thought out. On some level, he didn't want her to fall for him. He wanted her to stay the untouchable girl she was, giving him justification for hanging around all the time. _Because he had to win her over_, that would've been what he'd tell himself.

Her genuinely falling for him... it was dangerous. It complicated things more than he'd ever intended. At least before, he had the option of not hurting her in _two_ senses.

He'd tried this morning to get them back to basics, act like no new epiphany had been discovered. But her strange glumness threw him off, severely. And when she'd told him that he might not see her for awhile... this little something grew a little more, deep down in his heartless chest. He felt it now. He felt it waiting for Elena, his made-to-pull-a-trigger fingers curled 'round the statue's smooth feet. He felt it that day in the church, Cloud pulling her away. He would feel it, he suspected, in the days to come.

"You know," Reno said in conversational tones, "If we weren't crap at fighting against AVALANCHE... she'd be dead."

Rude's thumb twitched in his pocket. "What do you think you'd be doing now, then?" he asked, voice full of stressed calm.

Reno sighed tiredly and upturned a corner of his mouth. He hadn't realized it - his fingers had risen to grip the black toes of the statue he leant against. "No idea." He had an idea - becoming broke, taking up smoking again, getting laid by some clingy pennywhore. Oh, he had an idea alright. But he didn't want it. He realized, given a choice, he would've picked this.

He ran his fingers over the polished stone, stirred the fog away. He looked at the statue with his lashes turned down, those blue-greens hidden. "Couldn't picture it without her."

Rude stood as still as marble.

"You know, Rude..." Reno said softly, eyes still on those dainty toes, "You know... I think... maybe not. Maybe I'll just let it be."

The silence was soft between them, unbalanced by the occasional chatter from a pedestrian. The fog curled around Reno's fingers which were curled around the statue's toes.

"Hey, Rude! Reno! Why are you here?" Elena called from two blocks away.

"You're not that far away, 'Len. No need to shout," Reno told her, lifting his head and looking her way. The bones of his neck were sharp in the fog, graceful. His fingers curled away. The white of his cuff was blurred in contrast to the dark of his shirt, of the statue. He could've been a black-and-white photograph.

Rude looked slightly down to meet her eyes on her approach. She greeted him, and he responded, "Eleven minutes."

"I know," she said, almost dejectedly, her eyes flicking to the pavement and back again. "Which one of you won this time?"

"I did, thankyouverymuch." Reno had left his post, sauntering over to Elena and Rude. "Exactly, too. Let's go."

On the walk to his apartment, Reno was noticably quiet. Elena was probably making funny faces at Rude, jerking her head in Reno's direction and mouthing questions Rude would get confused over. Reno simply let himself think it a funny picture and not look back.

Inside...

"Ew, Reno," Elena muttered distastefully.

"What?" he asked, travelling many miles to reach her.

"Your floor is disgusting."

He shrugged. "I vacuumed last night."

"Maybe you need something heavy-duty."

He shrugged again, though his mood was somewhat pierced by Elena's complaints. "Yeah. Maybe you're right."

Elena looked suspisciously at Rude, then back to Reno again. She slid her eyes towards Reno's cupboards. "I hope your kitchen is stocked..." she said in a way that sounded more like whining.

He raised his eyebrows.

"That's a little better," Elena murmured under her breath.

Reno raised them higher.

She went to the leftmost cupboard, finding it stocked with about five cups and nothing else. She moved on. "Anything you want to tell us, Reno?"

"Maybe Rude. But not you," Reno said calmly from where he was leaning against the back of the couch, just to irritate her.

"Reno!" she said exasperatedly, taking the bait and also menacingly holding up a large jar of tomato sauce.

"I was kidding, 'Len," Reno said flatly, entirely used to her threats. Without a gun in her hand, she was about as menacing to him as a kitten. Even with a gun...

"Oh." She went back to cupboard, instantly furrowing her brow, peering at she presumed to be pepper. "What is this?" She held up the shaker, wiggled it a little.

"Salt and pepper," Reno answered without a flicker.

"... together?" Elena asked. She had noticed Rude had not yet said a thing, and looked to him as if for backup.

"Yeah. I figure you never take one without the other, right? Or at least I don't. So I combine 'em." Tifa knew that. She knew that he did that because he'd told her.

Elena now gave him a strange look, as if he'd just told her he had six toes or could knit or something. Tifa had given a milder version and laughed, wiped the corner of her eye, and said _"Yeah. I guess that's kind of true."_ The memory ripped clean from his mind, brilliant with light.

He kept to himself, Elena's chatter and Rude's responses pitched with amusement in the background. It was, he thought to himself, very nice background noise. Just as good as Tifa.

He went lazily over to his radio, weaving deftly around furniture. He tolerated a bunch of static (radio stations had a hard time getting back up after Meteor), and found some decent jazz. It was growing on him, darn that Rude. His apartment was so full now. Full of sound and light and smells. It felt so good. The softy part of him wanted to find it in permanent supply.

"Reno! Come and help!" Elena called, interrupting his train of thought.

"Coming," he said, much quieter. He picked himself up off the floor to join her and Rude chatting companionably, for some inexplicable reason, about underpants. He stood over the steaming pots, throwing a reply back every now and again.

Elena choked on a chuckle. Rude diced the vegetables Reno had bought last night. Reno blew his hair out of his face with a stuck out bottom lip and told 'Len to please not laugh herself to death, stirring the sauce to make sure it wouldn't burn to the bottom of the pan. A clarinet solo wafted through the room towards them, classy and mellow and not as nice as their combined chatter.

"I think it's ready," he told Elena of the pasta. Rude scraped his knife across the cutting board to deposit vegetables in the sauce. If Rufus was alive and walked in right now he'd fire them all.

He worked elbow-to-elbow with Elena, and tried, difficult as it was, to not think she was Tifa.


	17. Untitled

_Disclaimer: FFVII is not mine._

Author natterings: Serious, serious chapter. This had to come eventually. Reno acts just how his rip-it-off-like-a-band-aid school of thought taught him. Tell me how this chapter did/didn't do it for you. Thanks for reading.

**Hidden Ache**

"Reno, you've got sauce on your chin... you've got sauce everywhere."

"Oh?" Reno raised an eyebrow and looked down at his shirt. 'Len was right. Inexplicably, he had managed to get sauce on his collar. Really, how does one achieve _that_? He wiped his chin with the back of his hand. It was an herb sauce at Elena's insistence ("Nothing red! If I see tomatoes, I'm dumping the saucepan, and I'm not saying _where_ I'm dumping it either.") so it wouldn't stain too badly.

"You know, Rude, you're really good at cooking."

"Hm." 

Reno grabbed a napkin and wiped his hand. If you thought he'd leave it there, you didn't give him enough credit. Then he dabbed at his shirt.

"This sauce is really good. Everytime I throw something together randomly it always tastes like feet."

"Mm." 

Reno set his bowl down, having finished the pasta. He picked up a portion of sliced pepper and dunked it into some kind of dipping. It crunched while he spoke. "Hey Rude, what is this stuff?"

Rude didn't need to glance over, but he did. "Hummus."

Reno almost choked. He was surprised he didn't, actually. "_Hummus_? I'm eating the _stomach_ of some--"

"That's haggis." Rude interrupted, lest Reno start spitting out the pepper, treating them all to a very unpleasant scene.

"Oh," Reno said, relaxing considerably.

Rude set his bowl down as well now. They were all seated on Reno's couch (Reno and Elena) or on the ottoman (Rude, but only because he didn't want to boss Elena around). The food was spread out on the coffee table, looking as it usually did, some dipping had fallen onto the table, there were crumbs of bread scattered every few inches. The jazz was still playing.

"Hey, Reno?" Elena said in a voice that told them all there was trouble following.

"Yes, 'Len?" Reno asked cautiously. He felt Rude listening too.

"You're not broke or anything, are you?" Her voice was tiny.

Reno gave her an odd look, just to fluster her. "...No." 

"You're not... smoking again, are you?"

"No..." 

"You're um. Notexpectinganyone, are you?"

Reno narrowed his eyes at her uncomfortable form. She was playing with her toes through her socks, a strange nervous habit that only the three of them knew about.

He shifted his eyes unconciously. "No..." 

Elena looked at him fully, a weird apprehension on her face. 

Finally, he got what she _really_ meant. He told her, not the least bit embarassed, "No, 'Len. I stopped that months ago."

She was relieved, obviously. She brushed her hair back, not feeling the need to hide behind it anymore, despite its feeble protection. Still, her cheeks were plainly pink. "So... you haven't had..."

Rude raised his eyebrows considerably.

Reno clenched his jaw a little, but not out of frustration. How weird for Elena to be bringing this up. As a girl with a traditional background, he expected her to be a bit more prudish. Not to mention Rude was here as well, and Elena _was_ a female... "'Len, no disrespect or anything... but _why_ do you want to talk about this?"

She closed her green eyes pointedly, then opened them again. She looked at the wall over Reno's shoulder. "You're not... _planning_ something wi-with Tifa, are you?"

His right eye squinted itself. "'Len... I don't need to put that much energy into pickin' up a girl." His left eye squinted itself. "Since when did you start thinking that _that_ was what I was after?"

"Wellum. Ijussthought. That... it might be a possibility."

Reno leaned back into the couch, lifting his chin. He knew he shouldn't be, but he couldn't help it... he felt it, rising in him. He was angry. "'Len. Do you really think I'm still like that?" 

She looked at him now, those green eyes bright with guilt. "No! I just thought... you haven't changed since I met you, not ever. Maybe..."

"Meteor's changed us all, Elena," Rude stepped in. He might as well be shielding Reno with an arm, pushing him back for protection.

The silence that followed was thick, filled with thoughts, next lines, apologies. A piano played in the background, accompanied by an alto voice.

"I just couldn't let you hurt her, if that was the case."

"Do you really think I'd hurt her like that?" They said in unison. 

"What?"

"What?" They said in unison.

"So... you wouldn't," Elena said.

"Well, no," Reno replied. What did she think he was, stupid? Heartless? 

"Oh."

Out of curiosity and against his better judgement, Reno asked theoretically, "Why... couldn't you let me hurt her?"

Elena looked crossly at him. Was he stupid? Heartless? "She means too much to you, it's obvious." 

His anger was still there, it laced his words. He didn't even deny what Elena said, pushing forward. "And you think that I didn't know that, and that I would hurt her?"

"Well, you're not exactly known for your niceties." _Or for being in tune with any of your softer emotions._ She had no clue of the thin ice she was treading.

Reno was silent. He picked up a piece of celery and dunked it in the hummus. Doing something was always better than doing nothing.

"And aren't you already?"

He spoke around the celery, failing to keep his anger from flaring. "What?"

Elena looked at her hands in her lap. "Aren't you already hurting her? With that... challenge?"

Reno flicked a cursory glance Rude's way, a dirty snarl forming on his face. "Rude?"

"She knew about your past challenges. Makes sense she'd figure it out." Rude paused, then bit into a snowpea.

"I did, don't blame Rude," she was caught between pleading and commanding. "And don't change the subject. You're hurting her, you know it." 

The ice cracked the tiniest bit. "'Lena..."

"It's too late to back out. Because you started with bad intentions, there's no way you can have a true relationship with her--" 

"'Len!" He whipped around to gaze at her fiercely, that snarl scarily close.

She froze midsentence and swallowed at the look on Reno's face. He was _angry_. Maybe... maybe even more than when they had told him about Tseng's memorial. His markings, never that consequential to her before, stood out so red... 

He didn't need her to tell him that. He didn't. Because he knew it too damn well himself. He shook his head. "Don't you think I know that, 'Len? Shit..." He closed his eyes, almost feeling the pain of it. His anger had flashed bright at its peak, pulsing in his temples. Now the taste of it lingered, and he spoke bitterly, tremors still working through him.

"Don't you think I kick myself over it?" He took a ragged breath. "Over knowing that I can't do _shit_..." He let the breath out. "I had to be such an _idiot_. And she's actually _falling for me_..."

God, she _was_. Why couldn't he have seen it sooner? Or stopped it, or at least derailed it to prevent this terrible, inevitable crash.

He shook his head slowly. His hands were clapped together in front of his nose and mouth. 

Elena looked at him with equal measures of cautiousness and certainty.

Rude took off his sunglasses and flipped an arm down.

Reno knew that what he'd told Rude could never come to pass. He couldn't just let it be, keep his situation with Tifa on lock. He wanted to avoid it. It was why he acted the way he did around her that morning, nonchalant, detached, choosing not to see her feelings. He'd pay so much to avoid it, really, and he felt a little disappointed in himself for knowing that. But confronted by Elena, the matter pushed itself into the forefront of his mind.

He couldn't ignore it anymore, especially not if she went away. It would prolong itself, cause each of them more hurt than needed. Now he had narrowed the situation down to two possible ends.

One: don't tell her. There was never a Challenge. Her heart hadn't started as a trophy. Continue on, let her fall deeper, let himself enjoy her company... and whatever came of it, the foundations would taint his perspective...

Two: tell her. He had planned on her as a gamepiece from the beginning, himself a player. She was supposed to be an admirer he could use and leave behind. He would hurt her irreversibly and himself as well, because for whatever reason he found his mind drenched with thoughts of her...

He looked up from behind his hands at the wall straight across. Though he wasn't looking at Rude or Elena, he knew they'd look at him. "I know my choices. That's just it. I don't want to choose." His eyes smoldered. "But I have to." Any longer, and it would hurt that much more.

He was met with silence. Which meant, of course, that he was right.

--------

Tifa tapped a nail into the wall, careful to be gentle. The last nail she had hammered in with a fair amount of strength left a trailing crack in the cream-but-not coloured paint.

After that was done, she walked over to the bar and picked up a framed photograph. It was a landscape, one of the pictures Cloud had taken months before on his treks across the Planet. Though it came from a painful time between them both, the photograph was a present, and it _was_ beautiful. She needed a reminder of what she could slip back to with him if she wasn't careful.

It was later in the evening, but Cloud was back at her house, fixing up some doodad or another. He insisted that she look after the upkeep of her actual house and not just her bar. She scoffed and left it up to him. She knew he could handle it. She trailed a finger across the glass covering the photo. It was a nice gesture. She knew he wasn't the type to just present a gift out of the blue, so he must have thought about it before. She looked up from the photograph.

A foot or so behind the shelves of the bar was the wall herself and Reno had painted a time ago. On the one hand it had seemed so long since they had had that paint war. On the other hand, their meeting seemed so whirlwind-like, his arrival almost completely dominating her thoughts. For this reason, she couldn't let herself cover the wall yet. It wasn't a particularly wise choice, seeing as quite a few bottles were stacked in the shelves already and could break when she would be forced to move the shelves backward at opening time... but it felt nice to see the scribblings there. They were the product of an exceptional afternoon and evening with a man she had never thought she would befriend.

_Or end up falling for._

_Shut up, Tifa_, she told herself. She strode over to the wall and hung up the photograph. She straightened it out for an unnecessarily long time, then went back for another, this one of Cloud and herself. Cloud was to be her assistant manager. 

She had to tell Reno soon. God, it was frustrating. She couldn't keep doing this to herself. It had to be unhealthy, this ridiculous level of hoping something would happen.

Her fingers fell on the third framed photograph. She had taken it during the rustier construction phases, back when the walls were nearly bare. There was a large amount of paint spilled over the floor, a paintcan on its side. It would be remembered distinctly as the day he had pinned her to the floor, making her stomach flutter, stuck to her with mystery colour.

Just when she had hung the final photograph, tipping it into place with a thumb, the door opened. 

"Reno," she breathed.

"Teef." He smiled.

Had she looked longer, she'd have seen the smile die on his face. But she was looking at her wooden floor, which had been removed of paint thanks to the non-smelly paint remover he had thoughtfully bought her. Her eyes went to the shelves they had leaned against, talking of their allergies and childhoods and favourites. 

She had to tell him.

But Reno surprised her by talking first. "Teef... I have to tell you something." 

Tifa, being ever-polite, decided her telling could wait in that case. It might actually be better, to hear what he had to say, before she made any solid decisions. "Okay." She led them to the counter of the bar and pulled out a stool.

He sat facing her. Their feet could touch if they wanted to. Reno tried not to think about that. He stalled, absently licking dry lips, looking at but not really seeing the wrinkles of her shirt.

"So?" she prompted. Her voice was less dismal than it was this morning. Had it really only been a day?

"This... isn't easy for me to say, Teef." He had never in the past began a serious conversation with so much filler.

She only nodded. Still, he could see a bounce to it, and hoped desperately she wasn't thinking this was going any other way. He hated... to get her hopes up. He looked her right in the eyes, telling himself it was like anything else.

"Lately, I've been feeling this weird tension between us. It's not like... it was before."

Her face tightened at his tone.

He buried a hand in his hair, forcing the movement to come off as casual. This was the hard part. He had to go against what he'd said, that he wouldn't hurt her. The only way... "It's pretty obvious, Teef. I mean, it's kinda... juvenile." 

Her lips parted, her jaw clenched. Disbelief was in her eyes. 

He ignored it. To protect himself. "I just have to tell you where it stops. I can't be with someone like you. You're not... I'm not... interested." _God, he was such a fuckingfuckingfuckinghypocrite..._

"I don't believe you."

_What?_

She spoke over a dry throat, and now swallowed nothing to somehow cure it. She looked up at him from looking at her knees.

_What?_

"Tifa--" 

"Reno." She shook her head slowly, minutely, looking into his eyes the whole time. "I don't believe you." 

He breathed out heavily, summoning anger onto his face. He fixed her with a hard gaze. "Tifa... I'm _telling_ you." 

Her face remained unchanged. This wasn't right. This wasn't right. She _knew_ something was there... something neither of them, so finely attuned to their environments and the attitudes of others, could ignore. She _felt_ it. She was certain.

Reno jerked his head to the side and back again. "Hey, this ain't my problem. I told you the truth." He felt the blantant lie roll thickly off of his tongue. "You're not listening... so I'm leaving." He was off the stool, striding away.

"Reno," she said. She sounded so disappointed, but not how he expected. Disappointed, not with a simple heartbroken tone, but with a more complicated sadness...

Still, he walked.

"If what you're telling me is true, tell me why," she asked of him, standing up as well.

He ran his tongue over his teeth and spun, nearly at the door. She was making this harder than it was supposed to be. It wasn't supposed to be this hard. He was supposed to be the bastard she got over and forgot about - as much as he hated to think it. It wasn't working.

"What is it," -- here was the only moment her voice seemed to falter -- "What is it about me?"

_You were supposed to be a pawn._

He gave her a cocky, nasty look, the kind he tossed over his shoulder at total, shit-eating scum, and it hurt him so much he couldn't imagine how it hurt her. "Kill-me-incompatibility," he told her. He spun back around, his hand on the door handle. 

"_No!_" she shouted, and the pure volume of it froze him for a second. It bounced off of the ceiling, made her point for her. She was about to make more of a point - she was walking rapidly over to him. She grabbed his arm, the action brusque and shocking. "Now I _know_ you're lying," she spat. Reno was the first thing she had wanted to hold onto in a damn long time. There was no way she was letting him go without a fight. "Why. Why are you doing this?"

This close, she saw his eye twitch menacingly, his mouth set itself into a firm, hard line.

His next words were low, sinister. She didn't believe his intent. "You don't wanna know, Teef." _You were supposed to mean nothing._

She was breathing hard, her hand buried in his sleeve, gripping his forearm. She replied, just as determined, "Tell me."

He shook his head. "You don't want to know." He glared at her to get his point across, but still, he couldn't make it feel real enough. He could feel himself slipping at her anger, at her grabbing his arm. For being so _stupid_ to attach herself to such a sick jerk as him. _You were supposed to be infallible._

The pressure on his arm increased. "I _need_ to know!"

_Fine._ He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw, relenting. _If this is what it takes, this is what you fucking get._ "You were a challenge," he said, and his voice was normal, perfectly in control. With those words, there was a twinge somewhere deep down, as if he'd expelled a deep buried, critical part of his heart.

She looked at him, her thoughts flitting across her face so readable. "What?" she asked. Her grip contracted and released, small increments.

He closed his eyes again, his hand was still on the door. "You were a challenge." When he opened his eyes, they were devoid of any blue, just greengreengreen. He opened those green eyes, and kept them on her, kept them locked hard and fast to her melting, confused face.

_Not a game._ "See, I do this thing where I pick a girl, whoever tickles my fuckin' fancy, and charm her by whatever means necessary. I do this 'til she falls for me or wants to fuck my brains out, one or the other. Then I leave."

She pulled back her hand from his sleeve, comprehension hardening over her features.

_You're getting it now, huh?_ His mind was hotlinked to his mouth, the thought to smirk was instant. "Why? Because I can." He could feel his muscles relax. "Besides, a guy needs a little stimulation now and then. Can't expect us to go chasin' after somethin' subpar, now, can you?"

She took a step back, her perfect eyebrows drawn down over her perfect red eyes.

He looked right at them. At them, but not into them. He tipped his chin up and tilted his head, appearing to contemplate her retreating form. His voice was blended between loose and serious. "I've been playing you, Tifa. It's been a lie from the start." He couldn't tell if there was regret in those words, and he didn't care.

_Keep away from me._

Her last look at him was one of complete hurt. It was so saturated with betrayal he almost flinched, lost his attitude. Her skin was flat, sallow. Her lips were cracked, parted. And her eyes... he recognized it. They couldn't look at him anymore. He couldn't look at them anymore either.

When he pushed the door open and the cold night air hit his cheek, he tossed one last look over his shoulder at her standing wounded in the warm light of her bar. He couldn't let himself think, or he'd stay. She looked like - no, _he knew that_ - she was trying to hold herself together. 

No _it's better this way_, no _I'm sorry_. He kept up a careful blockade, pushed the door open fully, and then let it go, striding out into the night.


	18. Corel Swingset

_Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII belongs to Squenix._

Extremely long author thank-you/honesty-fest: Thank you all for your comments on the last chapter! Thank you especially to those who took their time to leave me a well-rounded critique - I love those more than you know. To be entirely honest, I feel like I could have built up the last chapter more (i.e. Reno's feelings leading to the decision). On the other hand, I was getting tired of feeling like this story was dragging. I felt that everyone (along with their relationships) were becoming static, and I really dislike that feeling, knowing that "my" characters haven't been growing for awhile. They have in subtle ways - ways that may not be apparent if you're not the author. I know that the decision might have seemed hasty to some readers. But that doubt _has_ been with him. To be honest some more, I didn't impress my own pants off with this chapter. I know exactly why, but I can't bring in what's missing quite yet. I know that was probably very "wtf?" to read, so I'll stop now. I hope you enjoy chapter eighteen. Comments are great.

**Hidden Ache**

"Tifa!"

"What the...?"

Cloud peered into the doorway of the modest house in the middle of the town, where a familiar figure plus daughter were framed. "Hi, Barret."

"Cloud! What're you doing here?"

"Tifa! I missed you!"

"Both of you! Get inside!"

Cloud led Tifa in, their hands clasped together. Each held a small suitcase.

"What're you doing in Corel?"

"Visiting you."

"Hah! Still a smartass."

"Sure, Barret." Cloud smiled.

"Tifa, Tifa! Are you staying here with daddy and me?"

"Yeah - where are you guys lodging up?"

"Point us to the nearest hotel."

"Ah, the both of you can stay here if you want..."

"You're sure?"

"Damn sure!"

"Good, 'cause I was just saying that about the hotel to get you to offer."

Barret laughed and squinted at this changed Cloud. _What did she do to you?_ But outloud, he said, "Come on."

The party of three went up a flight of stairs, Cloud and Tifa with their luggage, Marlene hovering behind them.

"I only got three bedrooms. One's mine and one's Marlene's... Marlene and I could sleep in my bedroom."

"We don't want to impose."

Barret peered at Cloud like he wasn't so sure just _what_ the blonde was implying. He felt kinda funny about Cloud and Tifa sleeping in the same room in _his_ house. He cast a sidelong glance at the two. He knew better than to ask. He'd seen Tifa.

Cloud smiled benevolently at Barret.

Barret grunted. "Hm. I'll let you get settled. I'm talkin' to ya later." He took his leave.

Cloud led Tifa into the room, their hands still clasped. It was almost bare of furnishings, just a closet tucked into the left wall and a little wooden stool. A mattress lay flat on the floor, presumably old and all springs. When they slept, they'd be half a foot off of the floor, but it was better than nothing.

Cloud took Tifa's luggage from her, gently plying her fingers from the handle of the suitcase. She gravitated to a spot by the window while he opened the closet. Surprisingly, there were blankets and towels.

"That wasn't very nice, you know." They were her first words in an hour.

Cloud smiled into the blanket he had in his face. "Well... I figured I'd have some fun with him before we straighten everything out." He dumped the medley of blankets onto the mattress.

She turned around. The hollows under her eyes were deep. She smiled. "I never thought of you as a playful type."

"Mm," he hummed in his throat. They shared a look, too long to be comfortable. He broke the silence to ask of her, "Come on, help me with these blankets."

As they lifted the blankets over the twin bed and made it up as best they could, he could tell she was thinking again.

"I don't think there's enough blankets."

"I'll sleep with a towel."

"Cloud..."

"Tifa."

She looked at him, swallowed nothing, then nodded.

From around the doorway of the room, Marlene retreated to tiptoe back down the stairs.

--------

Four nights ago, the door to her bar closed loudly, though she hadn't slammed it. She locked up, taking extra care to ensure the top and bottom locks were secure. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew she wouldn't be coming back for awhile.

Her white coat was a piece of clothing she particularly loved because it balanced out the dark waves of her hair and her usually dark bottoms and shoes. But tonight, it got her attention she didn't want. The bright hue was eye-catching, and pedestrians took a moment to look at it - then noticed her face.

She had been crying a noticable amount. The skin around her eyes was actually red, a phenomenon that had never occured to her before. She had just batted at them so much to will them to not cry that they looked swollen. She had tried her best to wipe the tear-streaks from her cheeks and had succeeded, but the eyes didn't lie.

When she reached home, Cloud came to her from the kitchen, the light spilling across the hallway floor to her. Still, she was mostly obscured in the dark.

"So, I was thinking that tonight we could improve my baking..." Cloud looked up from his flour-covered hands. "Teef! What's wrong?"

His question reopened the floodgates.

He rushed to her side, his hand already at the small of her back. Without saying anything he directed her to the sofa and sat her down. The tears flowed down her cheeks in the partial dark.

He wiped his hands on his pants, knowing he didn't want to get flour in her hair, but also knowing that he couldn't leave her.

"Cloud," she croaked, moving to bury her face in his chest.

His hand rose to cradle her head. He asked softly, "Why are you crying?"

After her second, shorter crying session, her voice came, trembling. "Itwasalie."

Cloud frowned. "What was?"

"Everything," she told him, then felt her tears struggling to get out again. No, no... twice was already enough. But, still...

"Everything?"

She closed her eyes tight. Tears leaked out. She felt her friend's fingers wipe them away lightly, quickly.

"From the very start. Everything he told me... everything he did... was a lie."

Cloud knew not to press a person already so emotionally taxed. He knew because it had been done to him, very long ago. Even so, there was a deeply human part of everyone that just _knew_ how much the heart could take. He rubbed her elbow and kept up the silence. He thought that she might choose to fill it on her own.

She did, in bits and pieces over packing. She had convinced him of her need to leave with surprising forcefulness considering her still shaky emotional state. She felt grateful through the sadness that Cloud patiently went along with her, no matter how unintelligible she was.

Cloud had received most of the story, Reno and Tifa's dialogue burning in his mind, and paired with his own viewpoint, he could - sadly - believe what Reno was saying about this whole challenge thing. Still, there was something slightly off. It could be something she wasn't telling him. It could be something Reno hadn't told her. It could be anything. But something still didn't fit right. He grit his teeth while she looked blearily at a wine bottle.

He called Cid. Tifa wasn't up to talking, not to mention she'd get questioned extensively for her voice, which sounded uncharacteristically weak and defeated. He had his arm around her, his hand gripping her upper arm, graced with a red ribbon, all through the phonecall. Tifa bit her lip. He didn't know exactly why, but something told him she was feeling Aerith's loss doubly. To lose two people you cared about, whether they had died or not, within the span of a year and a half... such close occurences and such strong emotional reactions couldn't help but be tied together. He felt it too - the only two women he had cared about other than his mother...

They met Cid some ways outside of Midgar. He was the same gruff Cid. He came within two days of Cloud's call. At the sight of Tifa obviously leaning heavily against Cloud, her hand in his, Cid's eyebrows went up. But he held off questioning, instead climbing the ladder, indicating that they should do the same.

Onboard, Cid trapped Cloud in his room.

"What's up?"

Cloud knew better than to hide anything. It wasn't like it wasn't obvious already. "Tifa's been hurt badly."

Cid raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Not by _you_, right?" He bit hard on the tip of his cigarette. The tone implicated that if it was Cloud, he'd have a staff wedged in a very inconvenient place. Cloud did not miss the ominous, effortless crack of knuckles.

"No," said Cloud.

"Then who the hell did it, huh?! I don't like seeing Tifa like that. It's unsettling!"

Cloud contemplated his answer. "An old enemy."

"What? Some fuckin' psycho from before Meteor tracked her down or something?"

"No," said Cloud.

"Then what is it?! Stop being so damn mysterious!"

Cloud looked at Cid, his eyes blue in the extreme. "That's at Tifa's discretion. And I don't think you should go pressing her for answers right now."

"I know, don't you think I'm smarter'n that? That's why I asked _you_." Cid shook his head, but he backed off, knowing that he wasn't getting any answers. He eyed Cloud critically. "So what're you guys doing, huh? You not dating or anything, are you?"

"No," said Cloud, sounding distant.

Cid, not the type for the inevitable small talk nor tight-lipped blondes, clenched his jaw in a crossbite and glared at Cloud. "Look, Cloud. I'm gonna trust whatever the fuck you're doin' right now because _Tifa_ seemed alright with it. If you let anyone lay a wrong finger--"

"Cid." Cloud looked at the pilot, somber. His eyes were still blazing blue. "It's not going to happen."

Cid grunted at the promise in Cloud's expression, appeased for now. "I better get a proper explanation when this is done." He left. Halfway out the door, he muttered a string of curses, rankled.

After they landed in Corel, Cid gave them ten minutes to get off. They needed much less. He was still angry in his Cid way, passively annoyed and holding off the barking at Cloud for Tifa's sake. When Cloud and Tifa had disembarked, he growled/grumbled about giving him a call when they needed to get back, and took off.

--------

"Tifa, could you clue me in?"

Tifa looked up from smoothing out the towel Cloud would sleep with tonight. She knew it was silly, but she chose a dark coloured towel, knowing that dark colours absorbed heat better. She doubted its ability to trap heat, but every bit helped.

Barret stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame in a way that he knew wouldn't spook her.

She looked at the floor at his feet and swallowed, her eyebrows arching together in sadness. "I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier."

He shook his head - _forget about it_ - and uncrossed his arms. "Could you tell me what happened? Why you and Cloud are here?"

How could she tell him? She didn't want to be diplomatic about it, say that 'relations had ended badly with someone' or something to that effect. But she knew that she wasn't strong enough yet to rehash what had happened very well. Cloud - Cloud had seen into the relationship. It wasn't hard for him to understand. Barret was a completely outside perspective. This saddened her, that they had grown so far apart.

"We wanted to visit," she told the floor, curbing off the inevitable. She realized dimly that she sounded very (there was no other word for it) broken.

Barret pushed off of the doorframe and looked carefully at his friend. He took a step into the room. "Hey, Teef. I know we haven't talked for awhile." He paused, running over his next words in his mind. "I'm worried. When you showed up, you didn't even hide it with a smile. I'm not the most... sensitive guy or whatever you call it. But I can tell something's not right here."

That did it.

She took in a wet breath. "Barret..." She strode over to him. He enveloped her in a firm, gentle hug. He couldn't remember the last time she had needed this.

When she pulled away, she wasn't crying, but her eyes weren't exactly dry either. "I'm just so messed up, Barret. I'm glad I have you to freeload off of for awhile."

His laugh was a short bark. "You know I'll be here for you." He rubbed her arm with a rough hand. "Could you tell me, now?"

--------

"There's this thing that kind of bothers me," she told him now, staring at the gravel ground.

Cloud sat on the swing next to her. They had brought Marlene to the playground after many long minutes of wheedling. He looked at her with compassion. "What is it?"

Her hands were on both chains, at about the same height her head was at. "It hurts... that he could do that. But... why did it all seem so genuine?"

He leaned his blonde head against a chain of his swing, into her, into the conversation. "I think... that maybe, at times, it was."

She sighed. Getting outside was really a good thing for her, as gritty as the scenery was. That broken look in her eyes faded a little by the minute. He knew it didn't mean she was healing that quickly. But it was reassuring to see after a largely discouraging four days.

"Maybe. But it all started with a lie."

Cloud was silent, not knowing what to say.

"I just feel so stupid, you know?" she said mournfully, but with a bitter smile quirking her lips. "I thought that there was a 'we' there."

Cloud said slowly, carefully, "There was."

Her eyes took on a glazed over sort of quality.

"Tifa!" Marlene bounced into Tifa's field of vision.

She blinked, breaking out of her haze. "Marlene," she replied as warmly as she could.

"Let's get some candy," Marlene suggested, a telling glint in her eye.

Tifa opened her mouth to reply, but Cloud beat her to it.

"I'll take you, Marlene."

Tifa looked at Cloud, a question in her eyes.

"You need to think," Cloud said simply.

Marlene, wiser than either suspected, went along with this. She knew that whatever had happened to Tifa, a five year-old couldn't hope to help very much. She took hold of Cloud's hand, ungloved. He hadn't thought to pack his gloves.

"Come on, Cloud," said Marlene.

"Yeah, okay, Marlene." As they walked away, turning a corner, Tifa could make out Cloud asking, "What's your favourite colour?"

Cloud's voice stuck in her head. _What's your favourite colour?_ And then it hit her over the head again.

_What's your favourite colour? _

Red. Or white.

She closed her eyes, and forced herself to swing a little.

_I think... that maybe, at times, it was._

Oh, how she knew it was true. Reno hadn't lied to her when he'd told her he hated sandals, or that he didn't know what 'scruples' meant. (And maybe he _didn't_, because he had done this to her.)

He hadn't lied to her when he told her his mother died, or that he missed Tseng. (The thought flitted through her head: _would he miss her if she died?_ But she waved it away and frowned at how morbid she could be.)

No, those parts of him were real. Those were all bits of him that she knew she would never forget. They were all words, all Reno-isms.

She imagined herself squinting her eyes in examination. Yes, they were all words. Had he _done_ anything truthful?

Yes. He hadn't lied to her when he'd bought that paint remover. He hadn't lied to her when she found him at the church that day, an empty bottle of whiskey in his hands. He hadn't lied to her when he'd chased her down to show her the peach billboard. Again, all parts of him she wouldn't forget.

She just knew. No one was that good of an actor. She knew, because she too, was a superb actress. There was only so much a person could fake. She pumped her legs, swinging a little higher.

You couldn't fake not knowing something, because a glint of your eyes always said otherwise. You couldn't fake not caring for someone, because that care always came out at one time or another. You couldn't fake a spark, a necessary, intangible _something_ that carried the both of you along. And they had had that. This eased her mind a little. She had fallen for all these parts of him.

Maybe, she thought, wind through her hair, maybe together with the lie was an overarching truth. And she knew it didn't logically solve anything, but she couldn't ignore it. And the truth was this: each had something that neither would ever see in another person. Without their lie, they never would have seen the truth. That Reno's second toe was longer than his big one and that Tifa hated honey and that both liked red and white.

How this would weigh in her mind was a mystery. How to balance their lies against their truths? Was it possible? Was it possible to measure up one part of a relationship against another? Was it fair?

She leaned back in her swing, feeling that free, heady, upside-down rush. After a half-minute, Marlene called across the playground to tell her not to fall off. She smiled a small smile, but genuine it was. Marlene made her think of Barret.

Talking to Barret had been cathartic. Being able to unload her story on him felt unexpectedly-- what would the word be? She wasn't sure. She hadn't given him any finicky details. But she was touched when he asked how she felt about this or that, his sentiment genuine. He was really trying to help her feel better, and it just felt so good to know he still cared so much. It felt good to know that her world was bigger than she'd thought it was. It felt good to know that they had cultivated a bond that could withstand time, that maybe she had this with someone else and didn't know it. Coming to Corel was the best choice she could have made in that tear-blurred, time-slowed universe of four nights and three days ago. It reminded her of who she was on her own - not just the bartender or the martial artist or the hero.

She dismounted, dragging her toe in the gravel to slow down, and joined Cloud and Marlene. Marlene had about seven small candies swinging in a bag from around her wrist. Tifa looked at Cloud. He was better with kids than she'd thought. Her lips curved into a helpless smile, again small, but real.

And another truth, one she had known for a long time: there was always a we. There were Cloud, Marlene, Barret, Cid, Aerith, Yuffie, Vincent, Red XIII, Reeve, Elmyra, Jessie, Wedge, Biggs. There were her mother, her father.

The truth: even through the wrenching of her heart (and - she clenched her jaw - the possible wrenching of his), there was Reno. He was indefinitely a part of her now. And yes, she would have to return to Midgar and see him and figure something out. She wasn't running away, she knew it from the start. Running solved nothing.

But for now, she allowed herself the time to bounce back. That was what she needed, what she could get here like no place else. That was why she'd come - to remove herself from the situation, just for awhile. She hadn't given herself _time_ in the past.

Marlene waggled her fingers, then took Tifa's. Cloud glanced at her sideways over Marlene's head. Barret, she knew, was looking up from his plans through the window. The red ribbons on their arms, the pink ribbon Marlene wore in her hair, all moved with them.

Tifa let out a soft sigh. Yes, there was always a we.


End file.
